


Corporal Punishment

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Plug, Birching, Boarding School, Caning, Chastity Cage, Control, Dom/sub Undertones, Fingering, M/M, Oral Sex, Orgasm Control, Over the Knee, Smoking, Spanking, Voyeurism, one master two subs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-05 04:39:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 68,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4166229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“It is a poor character trait, Mr. Graham, to pursue misbehavior solely for misbehavior’s sake. But if you wish to be thought of as a miscreant, as,” he pauses, savoring the word, “</i>naughty<i> then I can do little more than avail myself of seeing your whims through to the end.”</i></p><p>In short, a little masochist wants some attention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HermaiaMoira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HermaiaMoira/gifts), [MajesticalJeff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajesticalJeff/gifts).



> We have no excuse for this beyond a Cards Against Humanity game, that always yields the most amazing drabble ideas. And our drabbles are, for better or worse, huge.
> 
> Who can resist school boy Will being spanked across the knee, though?

Will Graham isn’t a bad kid.

Really, he’s not. He gets okay grades, not so good that anyone would hold him to higher-than-average expectations. Not so bad that he needs additional attention. He deliberately misses questions he knows to keep himself unnoticed.

The same is true for his relationships with others. He is polite, and social enough when required to be, but readily makes up reasons that he can’t spend more time than that with others. Just enough time is spent in discussing school work that others’ opinions of him are neutral.

He is neither a light nor a shadow. He is entirely in-between.

And so when the sudden desire strikes him to step outside his carefully constructed confines, there is no reason to think he should not. No one notices when he slips out of the flow of students in the halls. No one notices when he slides through the doors and out onto the grounds.

No one notices when, pleased deeply by his own misbehavior, he leans his back against an unoccupied building and slips a cigarette from against his calf, held in place - along with a single match - by his knee-high socks. Brian, another boy in his year, bartered it to him for answers to a homework assignment, uncertain why Will would want it but not caring enough to ask.

It used to be the headmaster’s house, once, the rough brick a century old where Will’s skinny shoulders rest against it. Ivy claims domain across the scarlet edifice, rustling in the same wind that carries Will’s flame to meet the tip of the cigarette, igniting with a crackle. He lets the match slip from his fingers, pressed into the grass with a turn of his toes, and muffles a cough into his hand as the smoke bursts forth only a moment after it’s inhaled.

It is pleasantly unpleasant, a burning in his mouth and nose and a tickling warmth against his fingers where they rest on the filter. Will licks his lips and presses the cigarette between them again, taking a deep breath and laughing when he coughs again.

He has seen some of the older boys play with the things in the toilets, smoke coiling grey and beautiful from pouting lips. He had watched Brian smoke with the others, had watched not just the illicit act but the eroticism of it all, lips parting and smoke slicking past them, something thin and elegant pushed back between pink lips -

Oh.

Will emulates it now, imagines that he, too, looks as carefree and beautiful as they, that he looks as desperately attractive and powerful. He wants someone to see, wants someone to look so he can show them, turn his head a certain way and exhale up to the sky, wants someone to come over and press him to the wall and ask where he got it so he can grin and lie. He wants something that isn’t the monotone of his life, and he wants it now.

Perhaps it’s why he’s smoking here, where he could easily be seen from the staffroom should someone bother to look, through the blinds in the little kitchen. Perhaps that’s why he is against the old headmaster’s house, a gentle and deliberate fuck you to authority. He sets the filter between his lips again and takes a long drag before exhaling with a little moan towards the ivy at his side, ashing the cigarette with a gentle flick of his thumb against the end.

Will Graham isn’t a bad kid.

But it’s a thrill to pretend that he is.

He thinks of James Dean, effortlessly cool but always carrying in his eyes a private pain. A secret that the world didn’t know - that maybe he himself didn’t really know. He thinks of Marlon Brando, and how he heard once that they used to live together in questionable company. _Bachelors_.

This too is a thrill, and Will lets it fill him as hot as the smoke. He inhales sharply to spread his lungs, holding it until it burns him from the inside out. He doesn’t cough it out this time, sputtering and uncontrolled, but sighs it into coiling tendrils like the ivy that shivers against ancient brick. He feels like James, like Marlon. He feels dangerous, and in that, he feels sexy. Desirable. Hollowing his cheeks, Will thinks of pressing other things between his lips, finger tips and tongues and -

He makes an undignified sound as a shadow comes across him, and drops the cigarette to the ground in some instinctive maneuver to save himself. If it worked, the rough coughing certainly does not.

He is watched with a passive look, dark eyes not narrowed or widened, no surprise or evident displeasure in catching the boy in the act of something so forbidden. When Will finally looks up, eyes watering from coughing and smoke, cheeks pink with it, Dr. Lecter merely hums.

“Are you conducting a study?” He asks, accent curling his words as it always does, turning them warm and liquid between his lips. “Passive-aggressive rebellion within the educational field?”

Will grins, coughs again and shakes his head. “I am bettering myself in the ways of the world,” he replies.

“By indulging in vice and violating the rule of law,” the headmaster considers. “Here I had hoped you might engage with the beauty of the world, sneaking away to a museum, perhaps.”

His smile widens, though his eyes pull narrower when Will laughs at this, too. Scarlet cheeks betray his embarrassment, ruddy red under his smattering of freckles, but suddenly brazen as a man walking before a firing squad, Will ducks to pick up the smoldering cigarette.

“Where did you get it?” Dr. Lecter asks, arching a brow as he’s sent a dubious look.

“If I told you, then I’d be in trouble with everyone,” reasons Will.

“If you do not, then you will singularly feel the brunt of punishment for such an egregious violation. Would you not lessen your own sentence, then, on the condition that the information you give me remains anonymous?”

Will hums, shakes his head, and brings the filter to his lips again, deliberately watching the doctor as he inhales, as he parts his lips and lets the smoke coil within his mouth before breathing it free. A gentle flick of his thumb sends ash to the grass and Will swallows lightly.

“Sharing a punishment is not the same as escaping it entirely,” Will says. He can feel the way his heart speeds, already, at the thought. It has never happened that he has been caned or punished at school, always in the shadows, unseen for either good or bad. But he has been witness to it, seen boys bent over the front desk and given their due stripes.

And every time he has felt his cock stir in the most salacious way; he wanted to be both the one beating and the one being beaten, he would let his mind enter them both and feel at once the sharp crack of the rattan and the reverberation down his arm from the strike. He squirms even now at the thought, crossing his legs and rubbing his thighs together in a gesture masked as thoughtless. Just a shift. Just a motion.

“Perhaps I would like another later. Should I reveal the names of the boys responsible I would lose that opportunity.”

“It is a poor character trait, Mr. Graham, to pursue misbehavior solely for misbehavior’s sake. But if you wish to be thought of as a miscreant, as,” he pauses, savoring the word, “naughty then I can do little more than avail myself of seeing your whims through to the end.”

A single stride carries him closer, until he all but blocks out the sun over the boy who only then quails inside, stomach tightening. The tension in him snaps into a gasp as Dr. Lecter sets his hand firm against the back of Will’s neck, holding him in place as a dog might a squirming pup.

“You are too easily influenced,” he tells Will, taking in the scent of smoke and sweat from him so near. There is something else there, too, a particular saltiness that settles against Hannibal’s tongue. He swallows. “I might have guessed you would lend yourself to things like this.”

Before Will can manage a breath, let alone a word, Dr. Lecter steps away once more.

“Change into an older uniform, please, one that you will not miss when it is ruined. Meet me in my study after supper. If you do not, I assure you, Mr. Graham, I will find you.”

“Ruined -” Will blinks, watches Dr. Lecter’s back retreat towards the playing fields and shivers. For a moment, the cigarette in his hand is far from worth this, yet he doesn’t let it go, he smokes it to the quick and drops it vindictively to the grass again. Let anyone find it. Let them know. It doesn’t matter, anyway, Will had felt the thrill of it, the heat and taste and power, and he would do it again, despite the warnings from Dr. Lecter. Who was he, anyway, but a man of power? After school was over, he would just be a man.

Will convinces himself throughout the rest of the day that that is just what it is, that he is going to walk to the study with his head high and his eyes narrowed, that he would bend and take whatever sorry stripes the doctor saw fit to paint on him before going to find the boys in their bathroom and telling them of the morning’s events.

He convinces himself it’s going to be a quick and passing thing as he seeks out an older pair of shorts from the bottom of his trunk. He tells himself it’s going to be fun, watching the doctor dismayed that he had not even drawn a sound from Will, because he wouldn’t, surely he wouldn’t.

By the time Will is at the door of the study, all he can convince himself of is not to run. His blood hums in his ears and his heart beats too quickly. But he knocks regardless, three times, before stepping back and shoving his hands hard into his pockets, rocking up onto his toes and back down to his heels.

He doesn’t reach them before Dr. Lecter’s voice rings out for him to enter.

The study is vast, once the chapel before it was outgrown by the student body and a new one was built. Several ladders lean against railings to provide access to the higher level, wide enough to walk along and equally filled with books, neatly arranged. The doctor sits at his desk, finishing a notation in his notebook, and without looking up, he extends a hand in front of him. There are two chairs, but Will does not sit. He stands between them, hands behind his back, and studies the rows of books, dimly lit.

Minutes pass in silence, no further instruction given beyond that first elegant motion. Will’s knees shake from standing, the pressure of anticipation weighing heavy against him, and he draws a breath to speak just as Hannibal says softly:

“Thank you for waiting.”

He closes the book and slips it aside, folding his hands against the desk and watching Will at distance.

“You know why you are here. You know the rules you broke, deliberately and with insolence. You know that if you tell me from who you bartered your cigarette, your punishment will be lessened. Correct?”

Will swallows, fingers working together behind his back to wind and unwind over and over before he nods with a brief incline of his head. He knows. And the more it is repeated the more he considers that perhaps it is worth dropping a name or two. Those boys who do not care for Will and make it clear, perhaps. 

But that is no way to fight one’s battles, no way to go through life, school-life or otherwise. Consequences faced and situations learned from. Will wonders how long he has been drifting in tedium that he has been driven to this, blatant disobedience and insolence to a man he - in truth - holds nothing but respect for in their day to day.

He thinks of the last time he had seen a boy bent and punished, and remembers how later that night, in the showers, alone, after all the other boys had gone to bed, Will had pressed his forehead to the floor and arched his back in the warm stream and presented his own ass as though to take his stripes right then. He had come so hard he’d seen stars, gasping and clawing at the tiled floor.

He tenses the muscles in his thighs, now, in anticipation and worry, and a little - though he would never admit it under any duress - arousal.

“I understand,” he says.

“Very well,” Dr. Lecter responds. He leans to open a desk drawer, producing a small key to unlock it. His fingers move in response to his thought, lips curled pensive together as options are weighed. The anticipation twitches between Will’s legs, and he brings one foot to rest across the other.

Almost instantly, the headmaster says, “Your socks are sliding. Fix them.”

It shouldn’t matter, and he’d dressed in an old and ill-fitting uniform by request anyway. Will bends, though, to drag his socks back to his knees, pressing his teeth into his bottom lip to resist the sound that comes from bending over with so much heat coiled so tightly in his belly.

“I will offer you an option,” the headmaster continues. “Bare, across my lap, using my hand. Or you may place your hands on the desk, and I will use an implement. What do you deserve, William?”

Will swallows, eyes wide where he still remains bent over, and considers the options offered him. One is likely more lenient, but cruelly more humiliating. The other… Will bites his lip hard before straightening up and regarding the headmaster again, hands set behind his back once more. Feet together, shoulders back.

He wonders if the man’s hands would be rough or soft, if he would stroke Will’s reddened skin after he struck it or if he would be relentless in his punishment. He finds that both thoughts draw a tightness to his groin. He thinks, instead, about the implement and the damage it could do. He has heard of why boys are told to wear old uniforms, why they are warned that they would leave with their shorts tattered, torn and sliced by the harshness of the cane.

Will knows he would not be able to sit, for days, weeks perhaps, that he would limp and be bruised, that he would ache from it.

Lord, perhaps he would even have scars.

He makes a sound, soft, and presses his lips together. Perhaps, for a first indiscretion, he would begin simply, and work his way to the cane. Perhaps, for the first indiscretion, he would allow himself to genuinely enjoy it. He shivers at the thought, and with a deferent incline of his head, Will answers softly.

“Bare, sir." He lifts his eyes but not his head, feeling his lips curl in a teasing little smile. “It is but a first breaking of an archaic rule.”

“And you are seemingly devoted to its destruction,” Dr. Lecter answers, not without a passing amusement at Will’s carefully worded answer. “It is not for you to decide which rules suit you, and when. It is for you to follow them all, until such time as you are informed you need not.”

He slides the drawer closed once more and stands to unbutton his powder blue jacket. Each ivory circle is pushed through its hole with careful attention, and finally he shrugs it loose with a roll of shoulders. Will could swear the man stretches as he does, pulling his neck long and his shoulders wide. His bottom clenches as his cock pulses once in response.

His cufflinks come next, the sleeves of his carefully pressed cream shirt folded to his elbows with a precision as terrifying as it is fascinating. When he lifts his eyes to find Will watching his movements, Dr. Lecter tilts his head a little, and Will cannot help but wonder if his title is one of academia or medicine.

“The rule in question,” the headmaster continues, “is not as archaic as you have been lead to believe. Truthfully, it is rather new. When I was your age, thirteen year-olds were allowed to smoke. Anyone could, though children rarely did due to the nature of the thing itself.”

“Even less reason to follow it then,” Will answers, voice dropping to a whisper that he tries to hide by raising his chin.

“Your shorts and underpants, William. Remove them and fold them neatly on my desk. Set your shoes on the floor beneath.”

Will gently folds his lip between his teeth and for a moment doesn’t move at all. Then he steps back, one toe against the heel of the other shoe, and works it from his foot. One, then the other. He bends, again, to retrieve them and set them parallel to the desk, toes flexing in the socks he had not been asked to remove as he considers his belt, fingers slipping over it, touching every hole and every bend in the leather. He removes it slowly and lays it on the desk, turning away from the doctor as he slips his shorts from his legs, folds those too, and then, after a hesitation, pulls down his underwear as well.

He looks at his cock, half-hard in the dark hair between his legs. He feels his entire body tense, can feel the headmaster’s eyes against him where he gives him his back to look at. Will swallows and presses his lips together again, a nervous little sigh filtering past his lips when he turns again and once more sets his hands behind his back, his feet shoulder-width apart on the dark wood floor.

Dr. Lecter’s gaze travels along the lean muscle of skinny legs, over knobby knees and bony ankles. It rests, longer than Will imagines it ever should, between his legs, and Will tightens every muscle in his stomach to not let his cock rise any higher. It twitches, just a little pulse in time with his heart, in time with the thought that the headmaster is watching, but surely that wasn’t enough to notice, surely -

The headmaster hums, the door locks, and Will tightens his fingers painfully together. Silent footsteps carry the man close again, near enough to touch Will’s back, were he just to extend his fingers, but he does not. The oiled leather shifts as Dr. Lecter sits upon the edge of it, no squeak, and he places his feet flat upon the ground.

His fingers fan into a stretch and close slowly to a fist.

“You do not feel remorse,” Dr. Lecter says, “for what you have done.”

Will makes a small sound and tries to cover it with something - perhaps - remorseful, when in truth he is just nervous. Nervous to the point of laughing so he does not apologize, laughing so he does not cry or embarrass himself further.

“I had been led to believe that the punishment was meant to make me feel that,” he says carefully, and to his surprise, Dr. Lecter smiles, just a bare narrowing of his eyes as he had outside, that morning.

“One can be led to a belief and still not believe it,” he points out, and Will raises his eyes to him to watch as he speaks. “Just as one can be led to an apology or confession through pain and have it be entirely disingenuous. Will your remorse be real, I wonder, after this?”

Will can feel his cheeks color and lets his eyes slip to the ground again. “I don’t know, sir,” he says. “I have never been so punished before.”

“Then we will learn your limits together,” Dr. Lecter allows, “and what is required to make Will Graham understand the importance of minding his behavior. Let us begin.”

He spreads his hand wide one last time, a gregarious motion with his palm raised to beckon Will closer. The boy’s tension vibrates the air itself, a muddled panic manifesting in shaking breath and laughter and urge to urinate and a stiffness still pressing in his groin. Dr. Lecter waits, as socked feet carry Will closer, and he stops at his side to regard his lap with silent question, pulse hammering in his lean, soft throat.

“Lay across, your belly on my thighs. I will adjust to your weight. You may hold my pantleg, or that of the chair, if you desire.”

Will bites his top lip now, holds the delicate skin between his teeth before moving to obey, bending to lay over the headmaster’s thighs, hands to the ground, and feet out behind himself until he is adjusted to have them bent, feet to the floor, so his bottom is in the air as his head is bent down. Will can feel his blush creep darker over his skin and hopes the doctor assumes it is due to gravity and the blood rushing to his head. He hopes he does not notice how Will has shifted against him just so, to not press his cock to the man’s legs.

He raises one hand to rest against the leg of the chair, coiling his fingers against it as his other stays splayed on the ground and holds him balanced.

He is prone and vulnerable, embarrassed and shockingly aroused, and nothing has yet happened, no strike against untouched skin, no touch at all. Will squirms, uncomfortable and nervous, and feels a palm press to the base of his back to hold him still.

“How many have I earned?” He asks.

“How many times did you fill your lungs from the cigarette?”

Will blinks, feeling his blush spread from his cheeks to beneath his jumper, further down to the bare reaches of his skin. His toes curl and he sighs out, shaky.

“Six, before you found me.”

“And two more after,” Dr. Lecter adds. He presses his palm to the curve of Will’s ass, and spreads it flat, stroking over the plush swell of the boy’s bottom, fingers curling where soft skin joins it to his trembling thighs. “And two more, then, after - for the insolent way in which you spoke to me there, and again in here.”

Ten. Ten swats for a single cigarette. Will bites his lip hard enough that he’s afraid his teeth will cut right through it, and he nearly does when Dr. Lecter spreads his own legs a little to adjust, and the tip of Will’s cock presses against the wool of his trousers.

He holds his breath, holds onto the chair, and tries not to respond to the way the doctor’s palm feels against his skin, illicit and forbidden, rubbing and stroking and touching him until the sensation goes away and Will allows himself to breathe.

The first spank seems to echo in the office, and Will’s eyes widen both in surprise and in pain, as he slips his socked feet against the floor and finds himself immediately adjusted to his previous position. He can feel the handprint against his skin in heat and throbbing and tenses his muscles harder. He exhales without a sound, a slow and deliberate passing of air through his lungs, and grips the chair leg tighter.

It could be worse, he considers. It could be the cane that would cut his skin and his clothes from him. It could be worse than having a man’s hand against delicate skin where no other man should touch. It could be much worse.

Will squirms a little more and knows it will be if he doesn’t find a way to avoid rubbing up against Hannibal’s trousers with his cock.

The second snaps his thoughts and breath from him, a jagged gasp ripping past Will’s lips. The headmaster’s handprint overlays the first to a knuckle, precision aim as specific as the way in which he unbuttoned his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Will’s skin seems to tighten from it, suddenly too small for his body, and the pain burns like holding one’s hand against ice for too long, cold and hot all at once.

Dr. Lecter allows him to release his breath, a little sound carrying on it, before he spanks him again. This, and the next, and the next, fall in such rapid succession that Will’s eyes well up and the room blurs shaking before him. He lets go of the floor and snares a fist in the headmaster’s pants leg instead, squeezing so tight his knuckles turn white.

“Breathe, William. When we breathe, it allows the brain to work freely and provide for us endorphins to ease the pain. You are halfway through already. For the remainder, I want you to think about what you did to be here.”

The next time his hand connects it is not a strike, but a caress that hurts nearly as much. Dr. Lecter curls his fingernails over the curve of Will’s bottom, scraping them over the handprints that redden his little ass. He squeezes and strokes in turn, to return feeling to numbed skin, and Will knows suddenly that this is not a duty for the man, but some perverse pleasure.

He hisses softly when nails rake lightly over the sensitive skin, and Will swallows down any more sounds, squeezes his eyes shut and lets the tears seep over his lashes but no further. He will not give him that satisfaction. In a stubborn act of defiance, Will sets his feet firmer against the floor and straightens his legs enough to lift his hips higher; unafraid.

The next slap hits him against the soft, sensitive skin of his thighs and Will whimpers, squeezing harder against the chair leg and the heavy fabric of Hannibal’s pants. The next reddens the other thigh as well and Will has to bite his lip again to avoid whimpering or sobbing, or, most embarrassingly, moaning when the eighth spank ignites coils of light behind his eyelids.

Two more, he can manage two more.

He does not think of his indiscretion, he does not think of the way the cigarette burned against his lips. He thinks, instead, as he is struck again this time does cry out, helpless and little, of how the doctor’s hand had felt against the back of his neck holding him in such control with such little strength. He thinks of how his eyes had lingered between Will’s legs before the boy had bent for him.

He thinks of his own desperate need for this, imagining it curled up in bed or on the shower floor, and sobs when the last slap resounds across the office and leaves Will shaking where he’s bent. Shaking, little, tearful, and so hard he thinks he might go blind from it.

Warm fingers feel scalding against his skin when once more Dr. Lecter strokes the site of his spanking. He skims them down skinny thighs, covered in only the first downy hairs of youth, he strokes them up over his bottom and to his back, fingertips brushing the crevice between his cheeks. The headmaster does not remove his other hand from the small of Will’s back, even when he shifts to try and free himself. Even when he squirms. Even when in doing so he leaks a long string of fluid from his little cock.

Especially then.

“And to think,” Dr. Lecter intones, “I had considered you such a well-behaved student.”

“I’m sorry,” Will whispers, eyes wide and lips parted, hands down to the floor again as he tries to push himself free and finds that he is held fast. His skin scalds beneath the touches, his cheeks burn with humiliation, and yet he cannot bring himself to tell the doctor to let him go, to slip to the floor himself and move to dress once more.

He doesn’t want to.

He wants to be touched more, with rough hands or gentle ones, he doesn’t care. He wants to find relief, here, from this, as he had hoped he would, one day, imagining it so often as he had in the showers alone. He knows it was the bending, the arching, the spanking and slow deliberate words that brought him to this.

He knows that it is his sin, and his alone.

It takes a lot to not beg the man to punish him again, just for this.

“I should send you back to your room just as you are,” the headmaster considers.

The words turn Will’s blood cold and dry his mouth in quickened gasps. He shakes his head, hands curling harder against the chair leg, against the headmaster’s pants. Dr. Lecter watches the panic that tightens the boy’s body, and notes that even this fear does not lessen his erection.

He wonders, absently, what might, and again skims his fingers over the boy’s bottom, seeking lower then to brush seemingly absently against his balls.

“There is nothing in the policies of our school that covers appropriate punishment for this,” Hannibal intones. Soft wrinkled skin tightens beneath his fingertips, and he hums when dampness presses into the fabric of his trousers. “What do you think is appropriate, William, for such shamelessness?”

Will swallows. "I don't know."

A harder spanking. A crueler punishment, still, than that. He considers taking up the offer to go up to his room this way. Then, at least, he could claim a stupid prank, could laugh it off with the others and vigorously stroke himself when he got behind his closed door again.

But they would see. They would see his ass spanked red, they would know he had come from a punishment and they would know from where. No. That he cannot risk, not for anything.

He rocks a little against the doctor's leg again, a soft moan escaping his lips before he bites them to keep it down.

“Rarely,” the headmaster sighs, “have I been so entirely misplaced in my assumptions.”

With a rough hand, he grasps Will’s cock. There is no further prelude, no pretense. His hand is hard and calloused, and yet just as precise as it had been in attending to his own tailored suits and the spanking that followed. He coils his fingers firm against his student’s little cock and pulls once, just to feel Will’s helpless moan vibrate through his ribs and into the headmaster’s thighs.

“How often, I wonder, have you imagined this,” Dr. Lecter muses. “You seek to be recognized, but not for your studies. You seek to be known, but not for your social standing among your peers. A desperate need for attention, despite every attempt to make yourself unnoticed.”

Will trembles, toes pressing hard into the floor and slipping on the wood. He has never been touched by someone else before, and this is nothing like his own fumblings at night, this is nothing like imagining. Will’s entire body unfurls with the feeling, he can barely breathe, so he just moans again instead.

"They're -" Will gasps, grasping harder against the doctor's pants. "I can read - read them all. I can't impress someone I understand, sir - please -" 

He has friends, but few. He has favourite teachers but he does not keep their company. Will flits from group to group, knowing and feeling and understanding every single one of his peers. It is dull. It is predictable. And, in truth, it is painfully lonely. 

The headmaster slows the insistent stroking, curling his hand to a tight tunnel and letting the boy rub into it with persistent rocking hips. He studies the bend of Will’s spine, the way his bottom tightens in pleasure when he rolls forward. He considers his words, and finds himself unable to suppress a sensation of hunger that rises with hearing such earnest pleas.

“And so you sought to impress who, then, with your misbehavior?”

Will’s throat clicks when he swallows past the knot in it, cheeks shamefully damp and scarlet with guilt and pleasure both.

“I wanted to be noticed,” he whispers, and at this, the headmaster allows a slow, soft smile.

“You have been, and I imagine that you will continue to be. If it is lack of understanding you seek, William, I will make myself unknowable to you. I will hold you to standards you could not possibly reach. I will reward and punish, as you merit it.”

He releases Will’s cock and silences his whimper of protest with a hard slap against his ass. Another cracks cruelly against the other cheek, and without warning, Dr. Lecter presses his fingers between them to rub against the boy’s hot little opening.

“Would it please you to traverse these sorts of games? My own private pupil,” he purrs.

Will’s entire body is on fire, pleasure and pain mingling in the most dizzying and incredible way that he can barely draw a breath. He tenses against the hand on him and finds that another series of hard spanks reprimand him for the motion. He sobs, head ducked and body trembling as the fingers return to touch him and Will slowly, obediently, spreads his legs wider.

"Yes, sir," he breathes, closing his eyes and letting his lips part, a tear trembling on the edge of the top one before it falls to the floor beneath.

He had wanted to be noticed, he had sought, he realizes, without perhaps meaning to, not explicitly, for a response like this. Kindnesses and cruelties, control and demand. Attention.

He had sought for it amongst peers and teachers, among his family’s friends when he went home for the holidays, and only now, bent over at the hands of the headmaster, did he find it. He could cry for relief.

Slow circles are pressed against his opening, the most private part of himself. It feels wrong, dirty, and entirely wonderful. Even the fact that it feels good curls Will’s stomach tighter and he raises a socked foot from the ground to squirm closer to Dr. Lecter’s legs. This movement too elicits a swift spank, before the headmaster adjusts his thighs a little wider.

Will’s voice cracks when he moans, pitching higher. The friction of soft wool against his cock makes him leak, slicking the material against which he ruts. Shameless and ashamed all at once, he curls his hips and humps ruthless little thrusts against the headmaster’s leg, and his efforts are praised with a hum and a slow rub against the small of his back.

“You will wait until I tell you to finish,” Dr. Lecter tells him, pressing his fingers once more between Will’s cheeks, and lifting the other hand to stroke his hair. There is a curious affection to the gesture, but beneath it a threat. His words are not a request.

They are a command.

Will nods, quick and closes his lips so his panting is not as obvious, not as desperate and loud as he arches his back more, presses harder against the hand between his legs, and the leg before his own. He is on display, here, for no one else but the man holding him, and Will’s cheeks redden at the thought that he wants to be on display for him always.

He also wants to come. Badly. And with a deliberate bite to his lip, Will stills the rutting and just enjoys the slow rubbing against his hole. It is good, so damn good, and Will’s toes splay in his socks against the floor just as his fingers spread against the headmaster’s leg.

“Your first lesson,” Dr. Lecter tells him, teasing in the tip of his finger, in promise and warning both. “You will not orgasm without my permission. You may touch yourself, as I am uncertain anything could stop you from doing so. The scent of it permeates you,” he adds, rueful. “Others may touch you, if you are inclined towards that. But you will not climax, you will not ejaculate, without my explicit instruction. Do you understand?”

Will blinks, the words taking too long to settle, and in the instant he doesn’t answer, the headmaster lays a savage swat against his ass.

“Y-Yes! Yes,” Will gasps, his entire body shaking in pain, from the precipice of pleasure on which he balances.

“Ask, William.”

“For -”

He is spanked again, hard enough to force him to shove his hands against the ground to keep from falling. A sob chokes past his lips, tears and snot slicking his face.

“P-Please, headmaster, let me come.”

“Good,” Dr. Lecter intones, and without releasing his hold on Will’s hair, he reaches between their bodies to hold his palm beneath Will’s wet little cock. “You may.”

Will whimpers, biting his lip again as he starts to rut forward, stroking himself against the doctor's palm until breath leaves him in little gasps and needy whines. He works his body, his hips, until he is shaking entirely, sweat slick against his back and sticking his shirt to it, and when he comes it is with a sob of relief and a heavy collapse against his teacher's legs.

Will’s orgasm shakes him, pulsing hot and slick against Dr. Lecter’s hand as Will tries to catch his breath, tries to understand what just happened and why he wants more of it, tries to understand that he has, genuinely, signed the rights to his own pleasure away to a man who may abuse them. Abuse him.

He almost comes again, just from the thought, and brings a hand to his face to wipe as much of the mess away as he can.

"Thank you, sir," he whispers.

Dr. Lecter tilts his head at the words, as if hearing the first notes of a favorite song. A faint smile narrows his eyes.

“You are most welcome, William. You may stand.”

He follows the movements of the boy as he slips back to unsteady legs, knobby knees trembling, his belly smeared glistening. Will winces as he straightens, the bruises already beginning to pull at the muscles of his bottom. Dr. Lecter stands, with no apparent notice of his own visible arousal pulling his trousers tight, and with his hand still sticky, makes his way to his desk to wipe it clean with a tissue.

“You will find that I prize politeness, in all things. There is nothing more detestable or unnecessary than rudeness, and you will do well to remember your etiquette during our lessons together. Recall my earlier offer, in allowing you to choose the implement of your punishment. If you are indiscreet or insubordinate, you will find my generosity lacking.”

Will watches as he sets the tissue back to the desk, rather than in the bin. The headmaster gathers up the boy’s clothes and brings them to him, shoes in one hand, pants in the other.

With a sniff, eyes still wet but no tears slipping from them anymore, Will takes his clothes and begins to dress, wincing when his underwear rubs against the sensitive skin of his spanked ass, over the mess at his groin. He pulls his shorts up slowly, working the belt through the loops with trembling fingers.

When he bends again to put his shoes on, it is with a little cry of pain and another sharp spark of arousal through his entire body. He takes his time doing up the laces, and when he straightens again, Will does not lift his eyes. He keeps them on the wet mark on the headmaster’s leg, both ashamed and aroused by the sight of it.

He sets his hands behind his back and straightens his shoulders.

The headmaster steps nearer, idle strides paced in time with the slow squeeze of his heart, a languid tempo compared to the quickening of Will’s heart in contrast. The boy’s sides heave visibly as Dr. Lecter stands over him, dangerously near, until he reaches to touch Will’s chin and a small sound escapes his student. He raises his head, until by force Will must lift his eyes, seeking between the dark gaze that meets his own, shining strangely red in the low lights.

Dr. Lecter’s cock twitches, and he pays it no mind.

“Just so,” the headmaster tells him. He traces his knuckles down Will’s soft, smooth cheek, and with a hum, he draws his hand away to dismiss the boy. “You may go.”

Will sighs out all the air in his chest at once, taking little steps to try and ease the stretch of his skin, but before he reaches the door, the headmaster’s voice calls out softly.

“I believe it goes without saying, but I shall say it anyway for both our benefit. What occurs in our private studies together, remains private. It would be a very grave matter indeed for a student to spread salacious rumors about the head of a prestigious institution, and one must always bear in mind that the marks left upon one’s academic record are not easily erased.”

Will nods, a quick thing, and lingers by the door, fingers caressing the handle. He wants to ask when they can do this again, he wants to ask if he must earn this through indiscretions, or if he may be given it for good behavior as well. Already his body aches for more, and he knows that when he returns to his room again he will touch.

He will touch but he will not come.

Not unless he has express permission to do so.

Without a word, Will opens the door and leaves, closing it quietly behind himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Will wants nothing more than to clear his throat, nothing more than to act as casual as Brian and Jimmy do when confronted like this. He’s always flown below the radar, has watched from the sidelines as pretty prefect Anthony Dimmond carried out his duties and took as much pleasure as pride in them._
> 
> _Curious thing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All polish thanks to our unbelievable beta [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

What possesses Will he can’t even say. Perhaps the aching need to be called into the office again, perhaps that rush of knowing he’s doing something bad, perhaps nothing more than a human need to go to the bathroom. He finds himself in the men’s toilets on the third floor, passing a cigarette between himself and Brian, accepting it from Jimmy in turn. Round and round, over and over.

He does not tell them what happened the last time he’d bummed a cigarette from them. They wouldn’t care even if they did know, beyond a laugh and a curse and calling Will a pansy boy for getting caught so easily.

He can still feel the phantom hands against his ass, can still feel the roughness of the headmaster’s hand between his legs, stroking him up and only at the end, the very end, letting him come. He hasn’t, since, less from fear and more from the way his entire body tingles at the thought that he was _told not to_.

He takes a long drag, exhaling with a shiver, and tilts his head back. His tongue works against his bottom lip and works it between his teeth, and he barely hears it when the door of the bathroom opens and someone else comes in.

“Don’t move.”

The languid drawl is enough for Will to choke, forcing his lips together as his body tries to expel the smoke that he won’t let go. Brian and Jimmy watch in horror before the latter steps forward, in front of Will whose eyes burn from it, cigarette smashed between his fingers.

“You two again?” The prefect sighs, settling a shoulder against a shower stall as he folds his arms. “Skipping class, how many truancies is that now?”

Jimmy turns his eyes to the ceiling and ticks off on his fingers.

“Three for me, and -”

“Shut up,” hisses Brian.

“Seven for Brian, unless there’s been more I didn’t know about.”

The prefect’s smile widens, eyes narrowing in delight. They are dark, almond-shaped and sleek. His hair sweeps glossy black across his brow, and he stands taller, lankier than most of the other boys. Despite his rank and reputation, he is likeable enough that few in the dormitory find him nothing less than charming, to say nothing of the teachers and staff who uphold his particular talent for writing with glowing praise.

Will eyes him balefully.

“It could stay at seven,” the prefect says, regarding not Jimmy, but Brian.

“I don’t know if I can get it again,” he whispers, stepping towards the older boy. “Last time I nearly got caught.”

“Nearly isn’t the same as being,” sighs the prefect. “Keep it nearly and we’ll both be just fine, won’t we? Though I didn’t come in here to catch you two playing kissy face in the shower - that happens enough without trying,” he remarks. Shoving himself forward off the stall, he idles towards Will, curious as a cat looks over a wounded bird. “I smell smoke.”

Will wants nothing more than to clear his throat, nothing more than to act as casual as Brian and Jimmy do when confronted like this. He’s always flown below the radar, has watched from the sidelines as pretty prefect Anthony Dimmond carried out his duties and took as much pleasure as pride in them.

Curious thing.

Will’s found himself imagining him, sometimes, during late night rutting against the sheets, long before he had been called into the headmaster’s study and bent over his knees.

Now, his lungs burn, his whole body stands at attention, and without thinking much of it he takes a small step to the side and tosses the cigarette into the toilet behind him.

“As long as it isn’t burning toast,” he says, “I don’t think you should be worried.”

Anthony folds his hands behind his back, leaning forward to the balls of his feet. His brows lift and he makes a curious sound. Behind him, the other two boys edge out quickly, before vanishing down the hall.

“That’s good then,” Anthony answers. “I would hate to worry for no reason at all.”

“Then don’t.”

“I’m not,” he says, with a crooked Cheshire Cat grin. When Will steps forward, Anthony meets his stride. When Will tries to pass, he is blocked again by the boy who stands a whole head - and then some - taller than him. Dressed not only in his tidy uniform, shorts cut just to the minimum allowable length, his black prefect’s gown is stark against his grey jumper.

“Why,” Anthony continues, setting a hand to the back of Will’s neck in a mockery of camaraderie, a facetious friendship. “Why would I worry when I know the source of the offense? Graham, is it? I heard you enjoyed a visit to the Headmaster’s offices not long ago.”

Will hums, tense, though he finds the tension here just as pleasing as when the headmaster had held him similarly. It is a possessive, dominant, controlling gesture, and Will feels his knees weaken.

"The corrupt incorruptible," Will says. He knows his breath carries the cigarette smell obvious and strong between them. He knows he cannot lie his way out of an obvious indiscretion. But the way Anthony watches him, eyes narrowed in delight and expectation, Will wonders if perhaps he can negotiate. 

"You must have enjoyed many a trip to the headmaster’s office as well, if you can recognize cigarettes so keenly," he says. What is there to lose, now, as he’s pushed back one step until he leans against the wall and Anthony stands before him. Will bites his lip gently. "Are you jealous?"

Knowledge passes in their gaze. Will’s eyes narrow and Anthony’s brows lift.

“Jealous?” Anthony laughs, setting a hand to the wall beside Will’s head. He cranes his neck and then ducks his head, imposing and innocent all at once, his easy smile offsetting the imposition of his posture. He lifts a hand, slowly, and loops a long finger beneath Will’s tie to tug it out from beneath his jumper. He winds it lazily around his fist.

“For what reason would I be jealous,” he continues. “Perhaps you think the Headmaster has shown you some sort of lenience for your minor misdemeanors. Perhaps you think he’s shown you favor, is that it?”

A sharp jerk snaps the tie taut and brings Will’s head low with a gasp. Anthony’s lips brush his ear as he whispers.

“Who do you think made me prefect?” He touches his tongue to his lips and laughs - his breath teases a shiver through Will. “Who do you think taught me everything I know?”

Will swallows thickly and parts his lips again. He can feel the singing of his blood through his veins, can feel the adrenaline that makes his entire body cold and fuels his heart to hammer faster.

He can feel the twitch of his cock in his shorts.

No. God, _no_ he doesn’t need that now. Not with Dimmond - though, hell, he has frequently enough imagined his wide smile and purring tone against his ear, his skin, as elegant fingers undressed and touched him - and not when Dr. Lecter is not there to give Will permission to come.

Will lifts his eyes and watches the older boy with what he hopes is a look of disdain, but they both know better. He swallows again.

"You must be a good student," Will murmurs, implying far more than Anthony’s genuinely impressive school record. He wonders how much of that too is now earned or bought. He presses his ass back against the wall and his hands as well, he does not touch, not Anthony or himself or anything at all.

“Very,” promises Anthony. He fans his fingers out beneath the strip of silken tie around them, keeping Will on a short leash and staying within inches of him as his back presses flush to the white tile wall. “But when one is graced with such an effective teacher - one who leads by example - then it would be a shame to disappoint them by underperforming.”

He takes a step back, and drags Will from the wall.

“Come. I’ll show you.”

Leaving only enough slack on Will’s tie that the boy can walk, Anthony marches him from the bathroom and into the hall. He sets his free hand in his shorts pocket, and rests the other up against his shoulder, with carefree strides and an easy smile for those students still in the dormitory. There is laughter, there is a sense of joy in knowing what’s coming when a prefect’s got a boy like that. Anthony tugs a little firmer when Will tries to stop.

“There is no smoking on school grounds,” Anthony announces. “Which means that there is no smoking in the dormitory. If you are so tempted by vice as to break this rule,” he grins, “I’d suggest you bring them to me first, and we’ll dispose of them together.”

More laughter, yet all Will can think, as his mind muddles and muddies and hums, is that he is growing harder in his shorts from this. From the humiliation of being so called out in public, from the tense grip of Anthony’s hand against him, from the promise of what's coming.

Will firmly presses his lips together and tries to ease his breathing.

It had taken him several days of gently wincing before he had been able to comfortably sit again, after visiting the headmaster. He had pressed hard against the bruises as they started to fade, to remember, to pull his body into a frenzy of need.

A week now, and he has still not let himself come, and hell if he knows why. Probably because he was told not to.

"Could a leniency be paid forward?" Will asks softly. "A favor for a favor perhaps?"

In the recreation room, central to their floor, Anthony leads Will to the center, between the couches. Normally they’re strewn over with books and boys, but at this time of day, most of the students are either in extracurriculars, study groups, or out practicing their athletics. He releases Will’s tie, unfurling it lightly from between his fingers, and steps nearer to him, almost chest-to-chest.

His smile widens, and his eyes narrow.

Anthony’s penchant for favors is well-known. He’s not cruel inherently, like some of the prefects, but rather terribly clever. Infractions go unnoticed when tribute is paid to him, whether in contraband materials or illicit activities. Rumors flicker to life once in a while that his love of vice goes well beyond the pale of palmed cigarettes and bottles of wine taken from the chapel.

Will knows, just from the look in the prefect’s dark eyes, that the rumors are entirely true, and probably not even the half of it.

“What on Earth could you give me for a favor?” Anthony wonders, lifting a finger to twist into one of Will’s curls.

Will could curse his cock if he thought it would do him any good. He knows that it’s most likely obvious, now, against the dark fabric of his pants, he knows it is most likely seen and noted and remembered. He doesn’t want to know what Anthony Dimmond thinks of that response to all of this.

He presses his lips together gently as the curl is tugged straight and then released.

“I’m unaware of the barter rate when it comes to such indiscretions,” Will offers quietly. “What would lenience be worth, in this economy?”

Anthony tilts his head to the side, gaze sharpening, but with an effortless smile, he steps away again. “That,” he says, “is not my job to decide. I consider offers. Weigh risk versus benefit. I choose whether the offer is satisfactory or not. But I’ve no time, you see, to go about bandying economics with a first-year.”

“Anthony - prefect -”

“Hush,” he answers, going to his desk in the corner of the commons room. It’s small, and there are others like it for the other prefects of their house, but his pride in his hard-won space is evident by its tidiness, dust-free and organized. He tugs open a drawer.

“For what it’s worth, Graham, I’m disinclined to accept any offers from you anyway.”

“But why?” Will insists. His voice pitches high in protest and he seals his lips into a thin line, brow creasing.

“I was asked, in particular, to keep an eye on you,” he says. “And being as you’ve decided to test the capabilities of professors and prefects alike in our meting out of punishments, it would hardly do for me to disappoint those who might be - and certainly are - watching.”

Will’s eyes widen, and for a moment he considers running, comical as that would be to be chased through the dorm and the fields by a boy who is not only smarter but faster than him - he has watched him in track and field. Will’s hands squeeze into fists at his sides and then release. He is not getting out of this, not _this_ , and the thought that he has been watched and followed for the whim of a sadist just…

Christ.

It makes him so hard it’s embarrassing.

“It takes great skill to be a disappointment,” Will mutters, and regards the door again. The room is, for the moment, empty, but it will not be for long, and the longer he drags out his petulance the longer he will have to have his pants around his ankles in front of prying eyes.

“What, then,” he sighs, taking a small step closer, “would my punishment be? Weighing up the risks and benefits?”

Anthony makes a small sound, considering. He lifts his eyes enough to take in the ridge at the front of Will’s trousers. He lets his gaze rest there long enough that Will’s cock twitches, visibly, in response to the attention. With a languid, feline smile, Anthony takes out a rattan cane the length of his forearm.

“Considering our mutual acquaintance,” he answers, “and how near we’re both being observed, I think I’d like to send you back to him with proof of my good behavior. And proof of your poor.”

Will makes a sound, now, little and high and nervous, and turns his head towards the door once more. The longer he waits, the longer he will be subjected to a public whipping. But the quicker he goes suggests just how much he wants this and _oh_ he doesn’t know which punishment would be crueler.

He takes a step forward, another, and finally turns his head to the prefect again, shoving his hands into his pockets hard and standing ramrod straight. A moment, two, and he slips them from free and crosses them behind his back instead. Why lie? The truth is clear enough.

He draws a slow breath and lifts his eyes, over the rims of his glasses, lip pressed between his teeth and cheeks flushed dark in anticipation and arousal.

“How many would serve to present him both?” he asks.

Anthony motions towards his desk with his cane, the instruction clear. He watches as Will goes, little steps and half-hunched from how hard he is in his pants from this. Amusement dances in the older boy’s eyes as he watches Will press his hands to the desk and bend.

“No wonder he likes you so much.”

Will bites his bottom lip and bows his head, curls spilling into his face and glasses slipping down his nose.

“Four, I think. Two on each side.”

The prefect spans his hand from between Will’s shoulders, down the curve of his spine. The boy trembles as his hips arch higher, outside of his control, and Anthony tugs up Will’s robe to bare shaking thighs and tight shorts. He brings the cane to rest against his bottom, and laughs.

“I think he’ll be very pleased with both of us for this.”

Will just closes his eyes. He hardly thinks that ‘pleased’ will be how Dr. Lecter feels when he sees him next, flushed and sweating and aching, begging to come. He swallows, starts to take a breath and Anthony chooses that moment to whip the ratan against Will’s thigh, pulling a long moment of silence, and then a helpless whine from the boy bent over.

“You take it so well, too,” Anthony notes quietly, curling his hands against Will’s robes as he presses his wrist against him to hold him down. He hardly needs to control the boy, Will is barely standing already. “No clenching, no shifting… a good thing, too, considering the consequences for either.”

Will barely parts his lips to reply when he’s struck again and the pain sings electric, making his cock throb in his pants, his entire body spark with it. It hurts, it hurts so much he can barely breathe and he can feel the wetness against his underwear, his shorts.

“Please,” he sighs, unsure what he begs for, knowing only that should he disobey, now, this, he will find a far more severe punishment awaiting him.

The plea pulls an echoing sound from Anthony, a hum of high delight as his own blood stirs between his legs. He stretches out a finger to slip beneath the waistband of Will’s pants, under the elastic of his little briefs, and watches in wonder as Will does not twist away from it, but only pushes his hips higher. Slowly, Anthony strokes the cane against Will’s legs, cool rattan skimming over stripes already scarlet. With a twist of his finger, he pulls Will’s underwear tighter, and lets sing another whistling strike against his thigh.

Will gasps, the air gone from him when the pain elevates him to dizziness. Hitched, small sounds betray his failing attempts to gather breath, and then all at once his voice returns to him, and he presses his forehead to the desk with a helpless sob.

“Should I find a reason to give you more?” Anthony asks, and in this, he is not only genuine, but strangely sympathetic.

“No,” Will sobs, biting his lip and squeezing his hands together, his eyes closed. His cock rubs against his shorts with every breath he takes and it’s too much, it’s all too much; a week of no release, a week of aching and needing and wanting, a week since he had felt fingers between his legs that weren’t his own or a stroke against his cock from a rough palm.

God.

He’s close. He is so close.

“Then,” he murmurs, hitching Will’s hips a little higher with a turn of his wrist even as Will cries out, not from pain but something else entirely. “You have one more left.”

There is a whistle of the cane through the air, a hiss of it and Will jerks, though no pain comes. The anticipation, the twitch, the tightness of fabric between the cheeks of his ass, against his cock, between his legs -

Another whistle and Will imagines he’s bent over for the headmaster again, presented and aching, and begging, _begging, please_ to be allowed to come.

The fourth strike paints red across Will’s thighs and he releases with a cry, pulsing hot and wet between his legs, wetting a dark patch against his shorts.

Anthony doesn’t let go, riding out the erratic shudders, the jerking spasms of Will’s hips. He runs the cane against his legs again and bites back a grin, bottom lip between his teeth. Will lifts a foot as a drop of dampness skims down his leg, too much and too long held for even his shorts to contain it. The movement spurs a weak, small sound from him though when his skin burns from the pull of it.

“Naughty, naughty,” Anthony drawls, clucking his tongue as he releases his hold on Will’s underpants. The boy’s knees nearly give way but he holds to the desk, shaking his head where he tucks his arms beneath. “If I know our headmaster at all, I know he’d find this very troubling.”

Will’s breathing comes harsh and loud, body singing and alive with energy and relief and pleasure. Pain weaves between all of them and cinches to a tight knot in Will’s stomach and he could weep for it. He probably does, he isn’t even sure anymore. It takes a while for Anthony’s words to process, and then he swallows, pushes himself up on his arms to turn his head back and look at the prefect.

“Perhaps,” he says, sniffing and bringing a hand up to wipe under his nose. “You would allow me to change, then, before we both go and see him? Save us both the humiliation and consequences.”

“Us both?” Anthony laughs, eyes narrowed and cane twisting in his fingers almost absently. Will just hums, pushing himself a little straighter, ducking his head to see the mess he’s made and cursing softly.

“Me for my indiscretion, and you for being the cause of it.”

Anthony’s grin is irrepressible, his nose wrinkling in delight. He smacks the cane down to the desk, hard enough to startle, and snatches Will by his tie once more, dragging him close. A few other boys filter into the room, sparing them glances, muttering amusement, and Anthony leans close to Will’s ear.

“It’s an uncouth habit, Graham, to blame others for one’s shortcomings,” he says. “Or coming in general, really. I’d suggest you stick close to me on the way there, unless you want everyone else to see. I’m only doing my duty.”

He leans back, so close still that their noses nearly touch. Anthony lingers there a heartbeat too long, taking in the wide blue eyes and splotchy cheeks and damp lashes, the scent of semen rising upward from wet shorts. And with a sigh, somehow strangely fond, he turns to tug Will behind him towards the headmaster’s quarters.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Mr. Dimmond.” Hannibal’s voice is quiet, tone low, and there is a fondness there that pulls warmth against the prefect’s cheeks as he smiles wider. “Unexpected, but I can hardly ever turn away a visit from you. Especially one that comes disheveled and misbehaving to my door.” He turns his dark eyes to Will, now, and the other boy resolutely avoids them._
> 
> _“William.”_
> 
> _Will curls his bottom lip into his mouth and resists the urge to curse or apologize or say something very stupid._
> 
> _“Sir,” is what he settles on._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our inimitable [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

Will keeps close to the prefect that leads him like a dog through the halls. He doesn’t want to, he wants to jerk his tie off over his head and bolt. At best, he would make it to his room where Anthony would find him and make his punishment even worse. At worst, he’d be taken down in the hall by the faster older boy, having made a scene and drawn more attention to the wetness now cooling in the front of his shorts.

So he stays close, tripping against Anthony’s heels, and holds his robe around his waist with folded arms.

The prefect turns another feline smile to his quarry as they come to a stop in front of the headmaster’s quarters. His eyes don’t shine with cruelty, but with a genuine delight, boyish and eager, in the promise of adventure together. He keeps Will’s tie looped around his hand, and lifts the other to knock twice.

A moment later, his smile breaks into a grin, as the headmaster’s voice rings low:

“Come in.”

Will is gently pushed forward to open the door, and with a resigned little noise, he goes. What else can he do? Running now would ensure much more attention than before, and the potential for two pursuers. Instead, he finds he can’t even lift his chin in a petulant stance of uncaring. He ducks his head and chews his lip and holds his hands in front of himself like a prisoner in cuffs.

Hell, he might as well be.

“Mr. Dimmond.” Hannibal’s voice is quiet, tone low, and there is a fondness there that pulls warmth against the prefect’s cheeks as he smiles wider. “Unexpected, but I can hardly ever turn away a visit from you. Especially one that comes disheveled and misbehaving to my door.” He turns his dark eyes to Will, now, and the other boy resolutely avoids them.

“William.”

Will curls his bottom lip into his mouth and resists the urge to curse or apologize or say something very stupid.

“Sir,” is what he settles on.

“You’ve not paid me a visit in some time,” intones Hannibal, leaning back in his chair. He lifts a hand to motion them both forward, and Anthony finally releases Will’s tie as he goes. As Will approaches, the headmaster’s gaze drops, once, to the dark discoloration blackening grey shorts. He draws a long breath as Will stops in front of the expansive desk.

“He’s been too busy breaking rules, I imagine,” Anthony chimes, scarcely able to restrain his pleasure. “Smoking - again. Being generally dismissive - again.” He pauses, tongue-tip touching to an incisor before he grins. “And more grave offenses than those on the books, I’m afraid.”

“It’s your duty to enforce the rules, Mr. Dimmond.”

“Of course,” the boy agrees, head cocked at a preening angle. “And I’ve done so. Four lashes in the commons room, with an unexpected result.”

Hannibal turns his gaze to Will again and finds the boy blushing dark enough to perhaps be worrying on anyone else. In truth, Will is humiliated. He hates the fact that he couldn’t control his damned body responding to something that should not ever be the cause of pleasure, and yet for him, entirely is. He hates that he has to stand here and explain his indiscretion - and he will have to, he can taste it in the air - and he hates that when it comes to his punishment for this - a genuine and cruel thing, to be sure - that someone else will be in the room to witness it.

“William.”

Blue eyes flick up over the rims of his glasses and he regards the headmaster before slipping his eyes to the side. The request is hardly one, and it’s clear enough. He swallows, feels the tacky stickiness slick down his throat and do little to wet it.

“It is not uncommon for a body under stress to… expel,” he tries, curling his lip again before letting it go. He doesn’t say anything else.

Anthony lets out a brash laugh before a look from Hannibal quiets him into a hum, eyes sharp with amusement. He watches Will beside him, smaller, shoulders hunched and shame writ red across his face.

“It should be uncommon, for boys that are, too,” Hannibal suggests. “I recall that we had reached an understanding.”

“We did,” Will says, “but -”

“But?”

The boy’s jaw jerks as he swallows, and he shoots a look to Anthony.

“He made me.”

“Made you?” the prefect laughs, before the headmaster moves to stand and both boys go quiet.

“William,” he says, “I would like for you to show me. Accusations mean little without evidence.”

Will pales, then, as quickly as the blush had filled his cheeks it seeps from them and he holds wide eyes to the headmaster, unblinking. Surely this is humiliation enough without -

No. No, there is humiliation and there is clinical sadism, and Will, in all his displeasure and quiet agonizing, cannot deny that it is that part in the headmaster that brings his entire body to attention, his entire thought process to a halt. He wants to obey because he thinks there is no way he cannot.

He moves his robes aside further and waits, as Hannibal takes in the mess between his legs, a dark enough patch in his shorts to suggest how hard the boy had come, how desperately he had needed to. He follows the line of several drops that have slipped down Will’s legs and over his socks, soaking silently into them as well.

“William,” he repeats quietly, waits for Will to raise his eyes, beautiful and wide and obedient. “I told you to show me.”

“I -” Will ignores the small intake of breath from the boy beside him and concentrates only on the man standing imposing - and impatient - before him.

He doesn’t want this.

He doesn’t want anything but this.

Will wonders what is fundamentally wrong with him that when he brings his hands to his belt, they tremble not for disgust but for a new-found arousal. The buckle clicks tell-tale of his own nervous excitement as he unfastens it and lets it slide loose. Hannibal holds out a hand to take it from him, and loops it in half - perhaps in promise, perhaps in threat.

Both, Will hopes.

He chews his lip so hard it hurts as with shaking fingers he unzips his shorts and rolls them to his knees, reaching to cup a hand across the front of his underpants.

“All the way,” Hannibal tells him, resting the fold of leather against Will’s wrist until he slides his hands away. He hooks his thumbs into the elastic band and looks between headmaster and prefect, helpless beneath their dark-eyed curiosity, and brings his briefs down as well.

The worst, he thinks, is that he is already semi-hard again, despite - or because of - the attention, the deliberate command that he look at his own wrongdoing and have others see it. He folds his hands behind himself and forces his chin up, legs spread enough for balance, briefs and shorts caught around his knees and baring him to the room.

Will’s jaw works in a brief jerk, something akin to anger, resentment, defence, perhaps, because he hardly feels either. He feels like something worthy of the attention and pain that threatens to befall him.

He wonders, for a brief moment of utter terror, if the door is closed to the office and turns quickly to check, finding a sharp slap of his own folded belt against his thigh a very clear indication to return to how he’d stood before.

“Filthy boy,” Hannibal murmurs, and Will’s lips part without his express permission, his breathing hitches and his brows furrow, and he cannot explain, no matter how he tries, how those two words, _why_ those two words, pull such a visceral response from him. He makes a sound, a tiny thing, and closes his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, feeling anything but.

“You will be,” agrees Hannibal, brushing his knuckles warm against Will’s cheek. Anthony watches as the headmaster lets his hand follow the curve of Will’s neck, the hollow of his throat, his rumpled tie and rutched-up jumper. He cups his hand - broad and firm between Will’s legs. Smearing his fingers through the stickiness gathered in the downy curls of Will’s pubic hair, Hannibal rubs the drying semen along the boy’s stiffening cock.

Will’s lips part but it’s Anthony who fills the space between them with sound, tightening his hands together behind his back to stop from reaching between his own legs to rub away the sinking, hot pressure.

Hannibal regards the older boy with a lifted brow and a hum of warning before he turns back to Will.

“You should have come to me, William.”

“I know.”

“You know, but you did not.”

“I couldn’t,” Will whispers, and at this, Hannibal brings the belt down. The leather pops against the boy’s plush bottom, but the sound Will makes - one of startled and genuine pain - tilts Hannibal’s head. He considers the tears brimming in the boy’s bright blue eyes, still red-rimmed from before. He considers the prefect standing pleased beside him, just as intensely.

“How did you punish him, Mr. Dimmond? By what method?”

Anthony straightens, chin lifted. “The cane, sir.”

Will bites his lip and ducks his head again, humiliated and aroused and sore. Every stripe sings, now that the air has hit skin, now that the belt has. Will shivers thinking of how it would feel to be struck now, and bites his lip harder. He doesn’t want this, he doesn’t need this, he -

“- took four,” Anthony says, smile still delighted, head tilting like a cat. There is an exchange between them, boy and headmaster, that Will doesn’t understand, doesn’t think he wants to. He listens to the hum that comes in answer, and sets his jaw when the belt is placed beneath his chin to tilt it up again.

“I had hoped to allow him the first taste of the cane,” Hannibal says, turning the belt enough that Will is forced to lift his eyes, then. “Had I the knowledge that this would be his reaction, you would find yourself quite similarly flogged, Mr. Dimmond.”

Anthony sets his tongue against the inside of his lower lip, and strokes it once across the sensitive skin. The words grip him almost as hard as any hand might.

Almost.

“Had _I_ the knowledge that you did not wish me to cane him,” he answers, “then I’d not have done so.”

Where Will blanches at the rude remark, Anthony only smiles wider. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, and the headmaster regards him at great length. He slicks his hand from between Will’s legs, and with a movement too quick for Anthony to react with anything more than a yelped laugh, he snares the prefect by the back of his neck.

The older boy is bent across the desk and when he goes, it’s as shamelessly as he does everything else in his life. He stretches his legs long, pushing up onto his toes, and turns his cheek against the desk with overt joy.

“Pants down, Mr. Dimmond.”

“For doing what you asked of me?”

“For not using better judgment.”

“He was smoking in the bathroom,” Anthony insists, laughter still light in his words. He brings a hand to his shorts to unfasten them, cheeks turning ruddy as the headmaster steps up closer to him. “How was I to know you wanted to save it for yourself? Or that he’d come in his pants from it -”

The belt cracks sharp against his backside the moment it’s bared and Anthony keens low, fingers spread once more against the desk. Robe around his waist and pants dropped to his ankles, he tries to shake them free and finds himself struck again for the movement.

Will watches, wide-eyed and motionless, hands twisting behind his back so he doesn’t touch. Himself or his clothes to dress, or the man before him or the boy bent over. This hums in his mind like some frightening facsimile of a wet dream and it takes everything not to moan in tandem with the prefect when he’s whipped again.

By Will’s belt.

In the hands of the headmaster who seems to delight in nothing less than the boys’ pleas and pain and pleasure.

“He didn’t clench,” Anthony says, voice pulling high when the belt whips across his thighs again and he curls his fingers against the hard wood of the desk. “He didn’t shift. He took it, all of it, so we-well!” A laugh to cover the whimper of pain and Anthony arches his back deeper, and here, Will does not resist a moan, eyes closing and throat working and head spinning.

He’s going insane.

He’s certainly going insane.

Hannibal lets the tail of the belt drop from his hand. Bent before him, Anthony rocks forward with a moan to stretch the sudden burn out of his thighs, and Will watches as his cock bends, stiff, pressed against the front of the desk. A single drop skims a glistening line down the mahogany.

The headmaster steps closer. Slipping Will’s belt around Anthony’s throat, he bends him back at the same time as his hips press him into the desk. Back bowed deep, Anthony’s lips part as he lifts a helpless gaze to Hannibal.

“I asked you to watch him,” Hannibal murmurs. “I asked you to keep me apprised of his misbehaviors. Did I ask you to punish him?”

Anthony shakes his head, dark hair spilling into his eyes.

“Did I ask you to cane him?”

“N-No, sir.”

“What did I ask?”

The leather creaks softly in Hannibal’s fists as he holds it snared flush against the prefect’s throat. A firm shove of his hips pushes a moan from Anthony, who tries to wet dry lips with a flick of his tongue.

“You asked me to tell you.”

“I expect better of you than this.”

“Yes sir,” whispers Anthony.

“I thought more of you than this.”

Anthony’s answer is only a sound, and Will watches the prefect’s weakness beneath their mutual tormentor with a wide-eyed wonder. He has never seen Anthony as less than proud and cocksure, egotistical and talented, charming and charismatic. He has never seen him submit to anyone.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Anthony manages, and his eyes slip shut as the headmaster releases the belt from his throat, and strokes his hair.

The boy preens beneath it, remaining in his prone position, spread and bent and _obedient_ , turning his head into the fingers that card through and part his gentle curls. He looks in bliss, contented, and Will realizes that instead of confusion or disgust or fear, he feels nauseating, stifling envy.

He turns his eyes to Hannibal again and resists the urge to step closer. He shivers, straightens, when the headmaster turns to him with a small smile and then tilts his head to the boy bent over for him again.

“Anthony was so stubborn when we started,” he recalls, drawing knuckles up and down the prefect’s cheek, now, as the boy pants against the desk and smiles. “Spirited. It is always them, always boys like you, that ache for this kind of control. Ache for the release of your own.”

Anthony near-purrs at the words, and Hannibal smiles at him. “Now look at him.”

Will does, despite the seething snakelike tension curling tight in his tummy. He looks at the wide red stripes across the prefect’s bottom, and he looks at how hard his cock is, bent down against the desk. He looks at the shivers of tension that flicker tight through Anthony and the content blush warm beneath his eyes.

He hates him and he admires him.

He wants to be him.

“Come here, please.”

Will startles at the words, hands covering his exposed penis for a moment, before he forces them away before the headmaster has to correct him. He steps out of his shorts, kicking a little when they get stuck around his ankle, and finally toeing out of his shoes to approach in only his stocking feet. Anthony rises when Hannibal brings a hand beneath his jaw to guide him upward, a steady form to lean against as Anthony laughs, dizzy.

“William, Mr. Dimmond is your prefect. You will do as he says, except,” Hannibal adds meaningfully, “when he instructs you in a way that will violate an instruction I have given you. Do you understand?”

Swallowing hard, Will nods, gaze darting between his headmaster, and the way his headmaster strokes his thumb against Anthony’s cheek.

“Good. Mr. Dimmond,” he says, turning his wrist and releasing Anthony to stand beside Will, both boys bare from the waist down but for the knee-high socks around their skinny legs. “Mr. Dimmond will do well to remember that whatever his position, both of you are under my exclusive care. And it would be of benefit to you both to become,” Hannibal sighs, and his eyes lift in a bare smile, “amicable.”

Will swallows, ducks his head a little and sets one of his feet atop the other, toes curling in his socks to rub gently. It feels strange, entirely plausible and completely incredible, that he is here, that they are here, and that they are here for the same reason and that that reason is -

God.

Will wonders, for a brief moment of frozen panic, if anyone knows. If anyone would investigate. He finds he is in terror more of losing what he has just discovered than he is of what is actually happening.

Considering their age. Considering the punishments and what they are for… this can hardly be legal, in any place. He feels himself smile at the thought. Good. Another misbehavior for all of them. He looks up when Hannibal makes a sound, and immediately he turns to look at Anthony, wondering if he had missed something in conversation, buried so far in his mind.

“Surely we are friendly enough,” Will says at length. “Neither of us have felt the inclination to be uncivil.”

Anthony lifts his eyes again to Hannibal. Without saying a word, Will knows he’s asking for permission, in a language that both speak clearly. Hannibal inclines his head, and Anthony grins, lifting a hand to rest against the back of Will’s neck once more. He leans close, too close, the length of their bodies touching without any mind for their bareness. The older boy’s cock brushes stiff against Will’s thigh, and he shivers.

“There’s a difference,” purrs the prefect, “between being civil, and being friends.”

“Intimacy,” Hannibal agrees, folding Will’s belt in half before setting it aside on his desk. “A healthy closeness between boys your age.” He draws a breath, considering, and leans back against the desk where Anthony was bent moments before. “I would like you both to know each other as well as I do.”

Anthony’s laugh is warm against Will’s ear as he nuzzles the first-year’s temple.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” he asks, his voice a drowsy murmur.

Will makes a sound, hands out at his sides as though to balance himself against this. He is too close, too warm, smells too good. He can’t have this, he isn’t allowed. It’s too sinful, too forbidden and wrong, and yet -

And yet the headmaster watches them with a soft expression, approving, if Will has any idea what that looks like on him. But he is not angry, he is not cruel in his gaze, and Will, with a sigh, closes his eyes and gently shakes his head no.

No, he has not kissed anyone before.

No, he hadn’t thought he would.

He had hoped, perhaps, to one day earn a kiss from the headmaster for taking a punishment well, but not this soon, and not this… playful. He sets his hands gently against Anthony’s hips and turns more to him, sighing out when he feels the boy’s cock against his own. So close, so sensitive and proudly at attention already.

“You have my permission,” Hannibal murmurs, watching Will’s hesitation, relishing in it. “To kiss and touch each other when you like. Neither of you may come, neither of you may mark, or punish. But I highly encourage closeness.”

Will draws a breath, but when he lifts his eyes to the older boy, he doesn’t need to ask. He can see that Anthony desires this, from the bow of his lips to the way in which his lashes hang low over his eyes. A smile plays in their corners, drawn up with an easy humor. He has heard of boys doing things like this - he’s seen it, even, now and then in the showers. And he has certainly heard rumors of Anthony, in particular, being easily won over with favors of this nature.

At the time, he didn’t think it was true, that a prefect would break not only a school rule, but a taboo far beyond the confines of their academy.

Looking at him now, Will can’t imagine how it would ever not be entirely accurate.

Anthony brings a hand to Will’s cheek, hushing him when he startles. He slowly removes his glasses with the other, handed off to the headmaster, and then he leans. Their cocks brush, their shirt tails, their jumpers, their mouths. Just a touch, closed-lipped and warm, pressing together.

Will whines, surprised and too pleased and overwhelmed and warm… and it is not a cruel kiss in jest, it is not a harsh one in punishment or demand. It is gentle and almost childish, an exploration by a boy who has wanted something like this for a long time, something fun and soft and innocent, something fluttering and tickling and sweet.

Will parts his lips softly and shivers when Anthony does the same.

Hannibal watches.

He watches the two beautiful nubile boys stroke elegant fingers over each other. He watches how they turn to rub against each other more, slim hips pressing close to stroke their little cocks together as the kiss grows warmer, as Will flushes dark and Anthony leans in more confidently.

They are exquisite.

They are his, entirely, to enjoy.

Their noses bump as both fumble closer, quickening breaths whispered over flushed cheeks. Will rests a hand on Anthony’s arm, the other lifted in uncertainty; his fingers curl and splay, pawing at the air, startling wide when Anthony presses together a little harder and touches his tongue to Will’s lips. A whimper escapes as he opens to allow Anthony’s tongue into his mouth, eyes wide on the older boy.

As if to show by example, Anthony twists a hand into Will’s curls and tugs. The other hand comes to rest on Will’s bony hip, to jut their bodies even closer. Their cocks trapped between their bellies, they rut in uncertain movements, seeking rhythm and not finding it, too uneven, too eager.

“You can touch me,” Anthony murmurs, grinning as they part panting, hearts racing.

“He’s quite ticklish,” comes a murmur from the headmaster. Will looks to him, fuzzy without his glasses, but even his near-sightedness isn’t enough to mask the stiff ridge in Hannibal’s pants.

Will’s breath whispers from him and he turns his head gently against Anthony again, corners of their lips brushing, noses rubbing together before Will bites his lip and sets his knuckles against the side of Anthony’s neck. It’s liberating and strange, being allowed this, being encouraged to do this. He thinks of the fantasies he had had of this boy in his bed, of him bending Will over to do to him just what he had done today…

Will slips his hands down Anthony’s back and cups his ass with his hands, relishing the little pained hum, the heat of struck skin against his fingers. Will gasps quietly, delighted, and squeezes.

A laugh breaks bright before Anthony twines it into another kiss, full of voice and heat. He squirms closer as if he might avoid Will’s hands by pushing him backward, tickled and aching all at once. He sets his hands to Will’s cheeks, squeezes them to kiss him clumsy and insistent. Anthony is more experienced than Will, Hannibal knows, but not by as much as he’d like to think he is.

Will staggers backward and nearly falls, righting himself with a little, wavering laugh of his own. They careen tripping, rutting, kissing towards one of the armchairs set by the desk, large enough that both can curl up into it.

“Trust,” Hannibal intones, to neither in particular, “that I know what is best for you.”

Anthony twines a long leg through Will’s, nearly sliding from the chair again as they squirm together. Cocks pointing up towards their chests, woefully untouched from where they find themselves now, too wrapped within the other’s kiss to care. Will’s lips brighten rose-red and puffed from the attention, glistening damp as Anthony pushes a kiss to the corner of his mouth, to his jaw, to his neck.

Will’s eyes remain hooded but he seeks out the headmaster again, sitting, still, against the desk and just watching two boys touch and play and rub together, their socks slipping down their calves, their shirts pushed up by eager fingers. Now that they have started, neither wish to stop, Anthony so childishly eager now that he has a play partner his own age, allowed to be the puppy he is with another one.

Adopting strays, over and over again.

Will whimpers, when his cock taps sticky against his stomach, still filthy with the come that had dried before. He bites his lip and slips his hand down to hold himself at bay as Anthony continues to explore his neck with hot wet kisses. 

His free hand he seeks down to slip between Anthony’s legs too, from behind, grasping almost cruelly against a soft, beautifully curved cheek until the boy squirms and hisses. Anthony meets his eyes, an awkward moment passing between them as they remember, undeniably, with whom they are doing this, what they are doing and where. Their cheeks darken, pulse pounding all the up to their kiss-swollen lips, and Anthony flinches as Will’s fingers twitch tighter.

“Cruel,” he mutters, and Hannibal draws a soft breath as Will’s grin finally breaks bright as summer sun. He pulls the older boy closer and Anthony resists with a pretty curve of his back, twisting out of his shirt and jumper all at once, tie snared around his hair, that too pulled free. Bracing, Will waits to be similarly bared, but Anthony’s attentions are elsewhere. He grasps Will’s wrist and brings the younger boy’s hand to his stomach, inching it lower.

“Mr. Dimmond,” Hannibal warns, softly. “Be patient.”

“I am,” he protests, lips pursing into a pout before he looks back to Will and nuzzles against his cheek, dark eyes so close that Will can hardly focus on them. “You want to, don’t you?”

God, what doesn’t Will want?

He definitely wants pretty prefect Anthony Dimmond straddling his lap, he definitely wants to touch his cock, he definitely wants to stroke and rub and play together until they come. He wants to and he fears it at the same time, knowing that the hot gaze of their headmaster on them is there, for now, simply to watch.

Will turns his eyes to him again, seeking and nervous, and finds the smile that meets his to be almost fond; Anthony has done this before, from what Will can understand, more than several times, he has leniencies that Will does not have, has not earned yet.

Will wants nothing more than to touch the boy in front of him, but his body still screams for the week of denial he had willingly subjected it to. He swallows, moves his hand as Anthony moves it and brings his own up to stroke his own cock, cautious, curious, moaning his pleasure.

Anthony’s eyes slip closed as his mouth opens, abandon in his low sigh and the laxity of his body. He melts into Will’s hand, and the younger boy finds he hardly has to do anything at all as Anthony curls his entire spine convex and rounds his hips upward. Slow thrusts bury his cock - bigger than Will’s own, but not by much - into the tunnel of Will’s hand. He tightens it and watches as Anthony’s long lashes flutter against pale cheeks, and his voice infuses every heated breath.

Will squeezes his own little dick, not even tugging at it, but only pulsing his fist around the shaft. He milks out a drip, clear and warm, and then another that makes him shiver when it trickles down to his fingers. He spreads it with one slow pull and his voice breaks again, cheeks hot with embarrassment.

“Very good, William.”

His headmaster’s voice pulls his body tighter, pressure coiling hot way down deep in his belly. Anthony’s eyes open to dark slits and he leans closer, touching his lips beneath Will’s eye, seeking once more the corner of his mouth, nose pushed hard against Will’s cheek.

It’s sloppy and warm, a slow touching and exploring of two inexperienced little things. Anthony less than Will, of course, he has his motions, he has his movements and understanding. He has the silent instructions that he follows without the headmaster having to open his mouth to speak them.

Will wants that. He feels that same tug of envy again. But even with that, the soft kisses against him are welcome, it is a fun experience, and educational. Will squeezes his own cock harder, when Anthony makes a soft little moaning purr against Will’s shoulder and bites softly against it through his shirt before finally lifting it loose.

He wants to come. He needs to.

He turns desperate eyes to the headmaster and finds only a raised eyebrow as his answer.

In truth, Hannibal could keep them there all night. Two beautiful boys, smooth-cheeked and thin-limbed, lanky and lithe and delicate. Two beautiful boys, blossoming into their maturity and sensations they both know but do not yet fully understand. Will’s slender fingers glide over silky skin, his rosewood tresses loop like vines around Anthony’s hand as it seeks back to curl and spread. Their lips are figs, overripe and bursting sweetness as they split against the other.

In their clumsiness, grace.

In their uncertainty, exploration.

Anthony is enough - clever boy, bright and devious. He is as satisfying to Hannibal as the headmaster might ever have imagined a kept boy to be when first he entertained thoughts of deviances storied in their school’s history but long neglected. Will would be enough, too, Hannibal imagines, had he found that wicked boy instead.

And together, just so, with ivory legs flushed pink like cherry blossoms and chests smooth as white marble…

Together, they are exquisite.

“You may finish,” he murmurs. “Together.”

Will’s moan pulls long and he ducks his head to nuzzle against Anthony’s hair, to smear his lips against the older boy’s cheeks and then to his lips as well. They rut faster, now, knowing that should they get too close to the edge, they would be allowed to topple over it. Will pants against him, breath mingling with Anthony’s as the other lifts his eyes to Will’s, sits close enough that both of their hands can grip both of their cocks, together.

The sensation is electric, and Will arches his back hard, spreads his legs wide, toes pointed in the socks that have slipped down to around his ankles now. He is so deep in the pleasure, in the want for more, in the sharp shots of pain that squirming in the armchair pulls from his abused thighs. He yanks Anthony’s hair and kisses him again, whimpering against him as the older boy finds his dominance, parts their lips, bites Will’s tongue.

Taking, claiming, stroking faster between them, Will’s eyes squeeze closed and with a low whine he comes, hard, against both their hands.

It shudders through him and Will feels turned inside out, coming so soon after the first time, dizzy with it, aching, needing, languid. Wanting little more than to curl up, contented, and sleep.

He feels when Anthony comes only when the other boy whimpers a gentle sound against his throat and sucks hard enough to pull a bruise up against it. When he relents, it’s with that charming laugh that has won over the boys under his watch, their teachers, the headmaster himself all in turn. Another breathless kiss is touched with tingling lips to the mark he left on Will, to his jaw and finally his mouth, hardly able to bring his mouth closed enough to form it.

They are sticky, now, wet with white semen dripping thick through Will’s fingers. The prefect lifts his sleepy-eyed gaze to Hannibal, who with only a bare nod tugs another languishing laugh from the older boy. Anthony grasps Will’s filthied hand, thumb pressed to his palm, and takes it from their half-hard cocks to bring little fingers to his lips instead, and one by one he licks Will’s fingers clean. One by one he sucks their release from Will’s fingers, one by one he swallows it with a grin.

The headmaster turns the sound this pulls from him into a hum, that thoughtful noise that both boys know so well. He leans forward from the desk and ambles closer. As he nears, Will’s breath rises quickening again, braced for pain or pleasure or both, he knows not what the headmaster intends. A protest - _you said we could_ \- dies on Will’s lips as he watches Hannibal tug Anthony’s sleek black strands straight with a firm fist, and bends to kiss him, sucking the salt from his mouth.

Their eyes meet for an instant and Anthony is liquid in his grip, brought to his feet once more and leaving Will alone in their chair.

“Return to your room,” Hannibal intones, not unkindly. “You have made amends.”

Anthony preens, leaning in to nuzzle against the headmaster’s chest for the few moments that Hannibal lets him. He strokes his hair, down the boy’s bare back and back up again before gently cupping his face and directing Anthony away. He goes. Obedient and warm, bending beautifully to get his clothes and slip back into them, one garment after another.

Will shifts as though to get up but the headmaster merely turns his eyes to him and Will sits still again, heart hammering in his chest as he watches, instead, how inch by inch, the beautiful pale skin before him is covered up again by school robes.

Anthony bends to yank up his socks, slips into his shoes, and with another grin towards Will, a more demure smile for their headmaster, he turns to go. Careful steps and soft footfalls take him to the door that he opens carefully and closes quietly behind himself.

Obedient.

Gentled.

Submissive.

Will swallows, curling his feet up into the chair and turning to look at the headmaster again. His body is a storm, hormones and emotions and pleasure and pain, all singing at once; it is disorienting and frightening and he cannot explain why, _why_ he so desperately wants Hannibal to touch him again.

“May I return, too?” Will asks him softly.

Hannibal regards the boy, pale and pretty thing that he is, curled half-bare and spent in his armchair. He takes him in, and notes the blush that fills Will’s cheeks sun-bright red, but that it comes without a trembling, a shaking fear that he might have expected. For a moment, the headmaster wonders as to his own motivations for this - it is risky enough to keep one boy in his sway, especially when that boy is as wild and guileless as Anthony Dimmond. It is almost unconscionable that he would attempt to keep two.

Almost.

But a year on, Anthony will leave their school and go onto another, and Hannibal would be bereft without a special student to instruct, to shape and to mold into a blasphemously beautiful creation. In his own image, he has shaped Anthony. In his own, he will shape Will.

And there is time enough to enjoy both, the thought of which eases away any worry of risk.

“Very polite. Thank you for asking,” Hannibal tells him, a smile touching his eyes, but only there. He extends a hand slowly, so as not to startle, and sets his fingers beneath Will’s chin to bring his head higher. “But there is still the matter of the rule that you broke. My rule, William, which should supercede all others.”

Will swallows, brows up and eyes wide, and tries to shift away from the touch only to feel the fingers against his skin incrementally tighten. It is such a subtle thing, and in itself to intensely frightening, that Will sits stock still immediately.

He is exposed, naked but for his stupid socks, curled in the armchair of the headmaster and knowing, _knowing_ that he will have to answer for what he did. He shudders to think what the consequences are. He thinks briefly of Anthony’s light little laugh about how had he clenched the consequences would have been severe.

He runs his tongue over his bottom lip and gently bites it.

“I thought we had made amends?” he tries, and Hannibal can see that he is pushing his luck, now, knowing that those words were for Anthony, not for Will to hear and heed.

The headmaster tilts his head incrementally, brows twitching higher, and Will’s throat tightens so much it hurts when he swallows.

“You will,” Hannibal assures him, and he steps aside to allow Will to stand, before motioning for the belt.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You liked it.”
> 
> “I -” Will’s denial dies on his lips and he just presses them together with a low hum of displeasure. He knows he won’t be able to sleep today anyway, even given the leave to do so, he knows he will squirm and gasp in pain and the need for more pleasure and…
> 
> Doesn’t misery love company?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our ineffable [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

By the time Will is finally released from the headmaster’s care, he wagers it must be near to morning. Outside the leaded glass windows, the sky is still dark, but it was late when they arrived to Dr. Lecter’s office, let alone now. The halls are empty and in his pocket is a slip of paper that he worries soft between his fingers. He watched the headmaster write out the note, excusing him back to his room from a visit to the night nurse.

Will wonders what would happen if it were the night nurse who found him.

He wonders what she would say when she saw him limping, dishevelled from the sound thrashing that Hannibal belted against his thighs until his knees quaked out from beneath him and he slid from the desk.

He was punished for that, too, with a hard slap across the mouth. The sound he made burns his cheeks with shame to think about now, and tingles low in his tummy. Embarrassed, he turns the corner to the hall where his room is located, and yelps aloud as he collides with the lanky boy in front of him.

Or he would yelp, anyway, if the prefect hadn’t clapped a hand across his mouth. Will’s lip still stings beneath it, swollen, but Anthony’s eyes widen in pleasure as if to echo the way the first-year’s blow big with panic.

“Come on,” Dimmond whispers, releasing his grip from Will’s mouth. “My room.”

“No,” Will breathes, frowns when Anthony’s bottom lip presses up against his top one in a pout.

“Why not?”

“Because I can hardly fucking stand,” Will gestures, as though that’s necessary, and frowns deeper when he is merely met with a small smug look and a deeper pout, eyes wide and ridiculous beneath Dimmond’s fluffy hair.

“Come on,” he whispers again. “I have something for it. Trust me, better now than tomorrow when the bruises set in.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You liked it.”

“I -” Will’s denial dies on his lips and he just presses them together with a low hum of displeasure. He knows he won’t be able to sleep today anyway, even given the leave to do so, he knows he will squirm and gasp in pain and the need for more pleasure and…

Doesn’t misery love company?

“Fine,” Will hisses, looking behind himself before turning back to Anthony once more. The prefect looks genuinely pleased, as though Will had just told him he would come to his birthday party, and they’re still in grade school. It eases Will’s expression somewhat, and he ducks his head.

“God it fucking hurts,” he sighs, following as Anthony leads him down the hall a little way and opens the door to his room. When the door closes, Will allows himself to groan, a piteous and little thing, and turn to regard the other boy behind him. “Why does it feel so good?”

The prefect sheds his robe with a wince, and jerks loose his tie. He tosses it to the empty bed on the side of the room, made as tidy as when the semester started. Will swallows down his envy at the prefect’s privileges - no roommates to worry about, no peers close as Will’s will be to see his bruises.

In truth, he’s just as envious of those marks as he is of the privacy.

“Damned if I know,” Anthony answers. His Cheshire Cat grin twists crooked, and finally splits into a laugh. “But it does, doesn’t it?”

Will only hums in response, but it’s answer enough as the prefect pulls his drapes closed and locks the door. The solid thunk of the lock sends a shiver through Will, shoulders hunching as he folds his arms.

“You’ll want to watch your language around him,” the prefect says. “Fuck if I care, though it would be demerits for anyone else. I won’t make your time with him any rougher than it’s already going to be.”

Will just watches him, wary like a cornered animal, thighs and ass throbbing in pain, entire body trembling with adrenaline now that he’s not moving enough to cover it. He is at once entirely languid and too tense. He doesn’t know what’s going on, or why. All he knows is that he wants more, he wants more now, even though he is fairly sure skin will split next time the belt strikes him where the cane had.

“I’d think it would be the opposite,” WIll mumbles after a while. “You’d want to mess my reputation up so you can be his only again.”

Anthony pauses, fingers on the buttons of his shirt, and considers Will at length for a long moment. Then he laughs, a single note barked loud, and continues undressing himself with little mind for the presence of company there.

“If he’s picked you, then there’s shit-all I can do about that,” he reasons. “Nor will it stop him from sending notes for me to come from class. It had better not, anyway.”

Will’s brow knits at the words and he looks to the door again. Warm fingers snare his cheek and turn him back and he startles, violently, and hisses at the pain from the sudden surge that pulls his tired body tight.

“I don’t mind sharing,” Anthony says, simply. He’s so unlike the brash, proud, spotlight-centered prefect that Will has watched with resentment for the whole semester. There is a warmth there, curious and kind, as Anthony’s eyes draw up with a curious smile. “You enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

Will frowns, knowing he’s blushing, knowing that he can’t lie, here, after having Anthony witness just how weak he had gotten from the treatment, even before the boy was sent from the room. He can’t deny it to Anthony or himself. He doesn’t know what to do. He just swallows and ducks his head on a sigh, nodding.

The hand spreads warm against him and Will shudders out another sigh as Anthony steps closer, setting his other to his hair.

“You know, I cried the first time?” Anthony tells him. “Not because it hurt but - it did hurt, god, he strapped me until I couldn’t feel my skin but... “ He chews his lip, brows furrowed as he remembers. “It was just a release. And such a relief to know that I wasn’t crazy to want this and think about it all the time. I sobbed like a little kid.”

Will’s lips part and he raises his eyes to the boy in front of him, surprised perhaps not by the honesty so much as how similar they are in their thoughts and perspectives, in the things they understand or want to understand. Their responses.

“How did he find you?” Will asks.

Anthony tilts his head not in skepticism but in consideration. A crease settles to his brow as he slips his hands lower, over Will’s throat, and smooths the robe from his shoulders.

“I don’t know,” he finally says. “I was in my first year. Terrified of everything. I don’t come from money like most of the prats here. It was terrible. Intimidating. I tried to play tough -”

“Did you smoke?”

Anthony’s grin returns, effervescent. “Of course.”

“It’s been years, then.”

Slowly, grudgingly, Will lowers his arms to let the prefect slip his robe from him. Anthony lays it across the bed, far gentler than how he pitched his own, and Will stands steel-straight as the prefect steps behind him again. Slender fingers unknot his tie from beneath his collar, and Anthony’s words are warm against Will’s cheek.

“Yes,” he says. “I imagine he just has a sense for it now. I told myself I was irreplaceable to him but here I am, in my last year.” Will’s breath leaves him as Anthony’s lips graze his cheek and his tie falls loose. “And here you are.”

Will is surprised by how little resentment there is in Anthony’s tone. He seems genuinely comfortable with the situation, with the fact that Will is here, and here to replace him in as much as he can, physically, do that. He seems confident, especially considering how school had apparently started for him, being confused and scared and alone.

Will swallows as Anthony starts to unbutton his shirt, and turns his head a little to lean back into him. Perhaps Will is worrying himself stupid over nothing at all. He had enjoyed it, hadn’t he? Being touched and kissed and watched? He had enjoyed Anthony caning him, speaking to him the way he had, he had enjoyed watching Hannibal treat Anthony just the same as Anthony had treated him.

He had envied the fondness, the familiarity, the comfort of it all.

Will wants to learn, he wants to earn that as well. He nuzzles gently against Anthony’s cheek and holds out his arms for his shirt to be stripped from him.

“I thought I was losing my mind, after he let me go the first time,” Will admits. “I thought about it for so long, wanting to be spanked again like a little kid, over his knee.”

Anthony ducks his head and buries a laughing groan against Will’s bare shoulder. Will feels himself smile in response, tilting his head to watch the prefect as he rights himself again.

“It’s fucking fantastic, isn’t it?” he grins, holding his bottom lip between his teeth.

“The way it rubs -”

“- right against his leg -”

“- every time he brings his hand down,” Will whispers. His breath hitches as Anthony works Will’s belt loose, and skims his trousers down to pool on the floor. The prefect does not touch more than that, but steps back to study the marks. Will feels his face burn from it, but bared down to his briefs, doesn’t move.

“I called my mother afterward,” Anthony admits. “I was going to tell her what happened. I knew it was wrong, I could feel it in my belly, you know? But I couldn’t make myself say the words. There were other things in my stomach too, and when she asked me what was wrong that I called her midday, I couldn’t get past the thought that if I told her, it would end.”

His confession hangs in the air between them for a moment, relief in his whispers. Will wonders if he’s ever told anyone, and knows from the softness around the prefect’s eyes as he turns to look at him that he hasn’t.

No one, until now.

“I thought I was broken,” says Anthony. His smile is smaller, then, gentler. “Lay down on your stomach. I’ll try to work away the bruises.”

Will watches him a moment more before swallowing and moving to do as Anthony says, setting his hands to the bed and then his knees, groaning softly as he lies down flat and curls his hands beneath the pillow to push it up against his face.

They are so similar. So, so similar, and part of Will feels his soul tug at the thought. He had thought for so long that he was broken too.

And yet, here they both are.

He hisses the moment Anthony touches his skin, and buries his face into the pillow with a muffled sob when the touches continue. It hurts, it burns and aches and presses to the pit of his stomach, the base of his cock, his throat, everywhere. His body has never responded this way before and Will finds that for a moment, he can’t control anything at all.

He finds that for the first time, he feels so _free_.

Then the tears come unbidden, pressed into the pillow beneath him as Anthony rubs salve into his skin, as he lets Will cry out his energy from such an overwhelming evening. He knows, he _understands_ , and that is so invaluable Will wonders if he will ever be able to breathe again.

He does, eventually, shallow and uneven things as Anthony draws a hand through Will’s hair and gently tugs it.

“Scoot over,” he whispers, and when Will lifts his face, he can see that the dawn has just started to break over the horizon, greying the sky beneath the drawn curtains. He shifts, turns the pillow over to hide his tears, and curls up close when Anthony settles next to him.

He doesn’t say anything, and the prefect only leans in to settle his nose softly against Will’s throat before easing into sleep. Will finds that it’s spectacularly easy to follow him. He’s exhausted.

“I hope you’ll forgive me being cruel,” Anthony whispers, as if someone might overhear them, their own sweet conspiracy shared between them and only one other. His grin flickers wider, brightly, and then eases again. “No promises that I won’t be again.”

Will makes a small sound, and stretches a gangly limb, uncertain, over Anthony’s middle.

“You’re as bad as he is,” murmurs Will, and Anthony huffs a quiet laugh.

“Lucky you.”

\---

They awake hours later, stirring stiffly against the body pressed close to their own. Clad only in their underpants, the two boys are a tangle of limbs, of messy hair and heavy eyelids, parted lips still soft from sleep. Anthony recalls the night before with an ache that makes the skin on his thighs feel too small. Against his chest, the little first-year presses his mouth and sighs contented, still dozing.

Neither need stir, in truth. Under Anthony’s auspices as prefect, Will might be excused from any number of weekend activities at which their attendance would be expected. It is their day to sport or study, to sleep or to catch up on assignments. It is their day to lay together for as long as they please, until the need to eat or piss drives them from the little bed.

He is lovely, Anthony thinks, ducking his head to watch Will’s long lashes twitch against his freckled cheeks, to watch the push and pull of his breath against pinked lips. It is a flattery to Anthony that the headmaster has chosen this boy as his replacement. It is flattery to Will that he be elevated as Anthony has. They are lucky to have each other, granted a year to find comfort in their occult kinship.

Anthony ducks his head and sinks a soft kiss against the corner of Will’s mouth.

Will barely stirs, a gentle furrowing of his brow, a parting of his lips as the kiss tickles them to spread. He is still mostly in sleep, body exhausted by confusion and pain, but his hand folds ever so slightly against Anthony’s chest.

The next kiss wrinkles his nose, the third has his glorious eyes opening to blearily seek out Anthony’s above him. For a second he tenses, confused as to why he is here, how, and why everything hurts as though he is on fire.

Then he remembers. 

Then he closes his eyes and with a deep breath, arches up into a stretch against the prefect, pressing their lips together in a proper kiss. 

Anthony smiles into the kiss, pressing back, mouth and hands and body. They fit together, despite their difference in height, like puzzle pieces made to match. He brings a hand up from Will’s back to thread through his wild spray of curls, sweeping it back from his face.

Other boys play this way, too. Anthony has seen them in the showers, heard them late at night, grunting and rutting and squeaking their bed-springs. In a boys’ school, there’s little other option for relief, and for most of his charges, that’s all it is. Those pairs don’t kiss, they don’t whisper to each other, they meet in the middle of the night to rut, rushed, and spill slick against each other’s bellies.

That’s okay. Anthony doesn’t stop them, though the rules of their school say that he should.

But he pities them, a little, their short-sightedness. His lips sweep smooth across Will’s own and his tongue parts them gently. He waits, to feel Will’s tongue brush his own. He waits for Will to mirror his rhythm, a steady ebb and flow.

Will is still barely awake, moving as he is moved, pushing soft against Anthony because it feels good and his body immediately responds to it. He spreads sweat-sticky fingers over Anthony’s chest and presses closer, following when Anthony shifts onto his back. The older boy winces at the pull of his skin but doesn’t move to adjust as Will nearly crawls over him, humming into the kiss and deepening it.

It feels good. It feels really good.

When he pulls away enough to breathe he bites his lip, opening his eyes to look at the prefect beneath him, lazy and languid and smiling. Will smiles back, feels heat flood across his nose, just beneath his eyes.

“Hi,” he offers.

Anthony’s lashes drift low across his eyes, and he tilts his head to study the other boy atop him. Resting his hands on the small of Will’s back, he settles comfortably beneath. His smile widens and he brushes their noses together in a soft nuzzle when Will seeks another kiss.

“Good morning,” he responds, English accent curving sleek across the words. He allows a kiss, returns the next, turns his cheek aside when Will presses another and then Anthony hums, eyes narrowing. “You’re going to be in trouble, for not being in your room.”

A ripple of fear tenses the smaller boy.

“But you -”

“Hush,” laughs Anthony, snaring his arms around Will’s middle and rocking their mouths together in another kiss. They’re becoming better at this, Anthony nearly as inexperienced as Will, as least when it comes to other boys. He has parted his lips for his headmaster - _their_ headmaster - and tasted him that way, but his kiss is a fierce claiming and this is something far gentler. It is the difference between the burn of whiskey and the sweetness of wine.

Not that Anthony has ever had either. Of course.

Will whines quietly in protest and frowns when Anthony just kisses his nose, delighted and soft. He is so playful, here, nothing like the stern looking smug thing that wanders the halls collecting favors. Will wonders if Anthony has ever shown this gentle side to anyone, how few people have seen it.

He wonders if the headmaster has.

“What day is it?” Will asks sleepily, finding a hum his only answer as Anthony leans up to reach for his watch to check.

“Saturday morning,” he says. “Saturday very early morning.”

Will lets his arms come to rest between their chests, and nuzzles against Anthony’s throat. The older boy lifts his chin to accommodate, amusement easy in his voice.

“You’re not rushing off, then?”

“Should I?”

“I’d hope not,” Anthony snorts. “You’ve not tried standing yet. Wait for that bit of fun.”

Will laughs, sweet and soft, against Anthony’s throat, but it cuts short on a shiver when the prefect skims his fingernails down Will’s back. He traces up again, following the ridge of his spine, the plains and valleys of his ribs. Soothing, scraping touches, drifting slow and near-asleep until Will squirms.

Until Will turns his spine and curls his hips.

Until he rocks himself down against Anthony, and holds his breath when he feels the prefect’s cock twitch against the hollow of his hip.

It feels good, enough to send shivers up Will’s spine and make him coil back down. He sighs out roughly and settles again. He can’t get hard, not now. It’s not allowed. And the thought alone makes it damn near impossible to think of anything but how hard he will get, very quickly, if he stays lying on Anthony as he is.

“This is going to be irksome,” Will mumbles, pressing his lips to Anthony’s collarbone with a hum of displeasure. The prefect just laughs, moves his hands to fiddle with Will’s hair again.

“It’s definitely harder when there’s another boy to play with.”

“He’s a sadist.”

“In every conceivable way,” Anthony agrees, still grinning when WIll looks up at him. This is his life, now, he thinks. Beatings and horniness and that edge-of-the-knife ache to do more and be more and reach…

“How often does he call you out of class?”

“When he wants to,” Anthony shrugs, shifting a little beneath Will and grinning when he feels his cock twitch through his underwear.

“What does he do if you come on your own?” Will asks, shaking his head, rephrasing. “When you show up at his door on your own, does he get angry?”

Anthony shakes his head, dark hair slipping into his eyes. He rests a hand on Will’s cheek, thumbing across his lips and watching as they pinken and part, as they yield and bend. For this alone, Anthony could understand the headmaster’s interest, let alone the whole of him - sweet and vicious, clever and innocent. The prefect expected he might feel jealousy, were he to be replaced. Instead, there is a camaraderie, and comfort in their conspiracy.

“No. He won’t always be able to see you just then, but he’ll send for you when he’s ready. He’s never punished me for coming to see him,” Anthony says. “But use tact. Don’t go to him in public, or if he’s guests in his office.”

“What would happen then?” Will asks. “If someone else found out.”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Bad things, I imagine.” Anthony traces his fingertips up and down Will’s back, a sinuous curve bending his body upward to press a kiss beneath Will’s jaw. Will’s hands spread and curl catlike against the prefect’s smooth chest; he lets the base of his hand graze a nipple and grins when Anthony makes a little sound.

Will bites his lip, but Anthony’s brows lift encouraging, and he asks, in a secret whisper, “What happens if you… you know.”

“If you come?” the prefect laughs. Will’s blush deepens and he ducks his head, cheek pressed to Anthony’s shoulder and eyes concealed under a spill of curls. “Don’t. God, if you never listen to me about another thing, don’t.”

“Why?”

“He has a cage,” Anthony says, turning Will to his side and tangling their legs together. Both boys wince, their thighs trembling with ache, but then duck their brows together as Anthony whispers. “Not a big one. A very small one. It’s like a little tube for your cock, with a circle that goes just behind your balls to hold it in place. It’s too small to get hard in, you can’t touch yourself through it. There’s a little hole to piss through but -”

Will watches him wide-eyed, astounded that such a thing exists yet entirely unsurprised that the headmaster has one. He swallows, wriggling closer to Anthony despite the pain that shoots through every nerve in his body when he does.

"Does it hurt?"

"It is just awful," Anthony murmurs, but he's smiling. Will’s noticed he seems to always be smiling around him. "He will put you in it for days on end, call you in daily to check on you, ask if you’ve learned your lesson."

Will parts his lips, as terrified as he is aroused to consider Anthony so restrained, to consider himself so.

"He will touch, every day. Run his finger against your balls, just behind," Anthony swallows and Will mirrors the motion. "He will praise you for leaking, ignore your whimpers for mercy. Bend you over his knee -"

Will moans softly, trembling against Anthony as he whispers a laugh against the younger boy and soothes him.

"Trust me," he sighs. "By the end of the third day, I would’ve killed a man had he asked me, just to get it off."

Anthony catches the little sound Will makes beneath a kiss, and whomever moves first is unclear as their bodies shift together. Limber legs tighten in a tangle to grind their hips together, cocks filling quickly, twitching harder. They find an awkward rhythm that steadies and smooths, shifting together, rutting against the other in brushes of downy pubic hair and stiffening dicks, pointed hipbones and soft bellies. It is a torment for them both to do this, considering the punishment that both, now know awaits them if they climax.

Neither stop, anyway, lips unfurling free from their kiss and freeing a twin moan.

“When he finally lets you though,” Anthony whispers, ducking his head to watch the scarlet slick tips of their cocks peek between them, “after all that time, after flat-handed spanking and pulled hair and the cane -”

Will gasps rough against Anthony’s throat, and his body bucks tight when the prefect skims fingertips over a little pink nipple.

“You’ve never felt anything like it,” he grins. “I thought I was going to faint. And so much of it, he made me come right into his hand -”

"Is he ever kind?" Will asks suddenly, and Anthony blinks, for a moment disoriented by the question.

"He is never not kind," Anthony reasons. "Don't confuse gentleness with kindness. He gives us what we crave with sharp slaps and fingers pushed in deep. That is a kindness."

Will shudders and bites his lip. He is too used to being in control of himself, of his pleasure. Were he still, now, he would rut a mess between them. But there is a force that stops him, an aching need to impress, to be good and earn another fingering.

Anthony mirrors the movements of the younger boy, slowing himself back from urgency. Though the consideration occurs that he could drive Will easily to orgasm and still hold himself at bay - with years, now, of practice doing so at the behest of their headmaster - he decides against that particular cruelty. For now, anyway.

He wonders if he would be punished for Will’s climax, too.

“He gave us each other,” Anthony reminds Will, meeting bright blue eyes, now pupil-black. “He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to give us permission for this. It’s nice,” the prefect says softly, stroking his knuckles over Will’s rabbit-quick heart, “to have someone else who understands.”

"Yeah," Will whispers, still inexperienced in holding himself back or learning to pace himself. He wants all and now and harder. Anthony remembers himself at that age, remembers his youthful anger and hunger for this, the rebellion he had attempted not to have this end, never end, but to find a foothold in his messy life.

He strokes Will’s hair and with a gentle bite to his lip slips his hand down to cup Will’s ass, catching his cry of pain before it can make it to the door.

"Remember this," Anthony whispers, very gently squeezing as Will squirms against him, leaking fluid over his belly. "This innocence in newness. Because it gets so much better."

Will shivers and nods, strokes his hands over Anthony’s skin, arches his hips against him. The prefect soothes him with a hum.

"Slow," he laughs.

Anthony steadies Will’s movements, guides them, fingers pressing into one of the welts he can feel striping the boy’s backside when Will moves too quickly. He remains still, otherwise, eyes hooded but open still to watch the younger boy shift against him. Languid, he leans in and lets his lips drift across Will’s shoulder.

“See?” he whispers, as Will shifts just hard enough for friction, too slow for climax. “You could go for hours like this.”

“I don’t want to go for hours,” mutters Will.

“But you will,” Anthony promises, touching a kiss to Will’s cheek when they nuzzle together. “For him. And you’ll beg and you’ll beg and if you’re lucky he’ll hit you.”

Will leans back a little, eyes widening.

Anthony shrugs, grinning crooked. “I like it, anyway.” He closes the distance once more as they rock together, touching kiss after kiss to Will’s cheeks and mouth. “Slapped hard enough to make my eyes water. That’s awful, isn’t it? We’re not supposed to like that.”

Will shivers a breath out and remembers the sound he had made when Hannibal had slapped him. The shock had been so intense, so bright, and Will had moaned, lips parted hungry and cheeks slick with tears. He had liked it. He had liked it a lot.

"Does he ever want to come?" Will asks quietly, watches with surprise when Anthony blushes deeply and ducks his head.

"He always wants. He has the patience of a martyr though. It is such a treat when he lets himself go."

Will considers the words, the fondness with which Anthony says them, and his lips part in surprise and envy both.

"Has he fucked you?"

Anthony’s smile gentles, his brow creases. It is not a look of annoyance, but an expression uncharacteristically shy for the outspoken and popular prefect. Will almost apologizes for asking such a personal question, but Anthony’s little nod quiets him.

“I wanted it,” he says, settling as Will’s movements prove enough for them both. Anthony tangles his fingers in Will’s hair, watching him. “I asked him, if he was going to. If he would. He made me wait, fingers first, then his mouth -”

“ _There?_ ”

Anthony only grins.

“Did it hurt?” Will asks, and Anthony laughs against his throat, kissing the soft skin beneath his jaw.

“Blinding pain,” he says, squeezing Will’s backside when the younger boy’s cock jerks in response to the words. “And then it got easier. Better. It hurts and it feels good, all at once - you know what I mean. And,” he whispers, “you’ve never felt more fucking powerful in your life than when he finishes inside you.”

Will trembles, overwhelmed and delighted and scared all at once. He is envious, but he is worried. Needy but contented to serve himself. He doesn’t know what he wants at all, but watching the bliss on Anthony’s face when he speaks of their headmaster, watching the confidence and fondness in him...

He wants it.

His entire body shudders with the thought. 

"You really like him," Will says softly, and Anthony's cheeks darken further. He doesn’t deny it, and Will doesn’t push, instead leaning in to kiss him again and nuzzle alongside his nose. His hips still rock against him, holding them both on the precipice of pleasure.

Anthony eases his grip on Will’s tortured bottom and settles his palms to the younger boy’s back instead. He returns the languid thrusts, lips parting with soft sounds when their cocks brush. They are both stiff to dripping, smearing clear fluid across the other’s length, their tender tummies. Anthony buries his nose into Will’s hair and huffs a sigh, curled with a desperate laugh.

“You’re going to get me in trouble,” he decides, smile widening when Will grins at the words.

“You already got me into trouble.”

“You did that yourself,” snorts Anthony, stealing a clumsy kiss before he drops his hands to Will’s hips and slows his movements to a stop. His eyes, dark but bright with a mischievous inner light, narrow in thought. “We should go to him.”

“Now?”

“Just like this.”

Will blushes dark and shakes his head. Only hours before he had stumbled from the study, exhausted and in pain and so turned on he could hardly see. He couldn't go back again, now, surely?

"It's early -"

"He doesn’t sleep much."

"He won't be in his office -"

"He will be." Anthony laughs quietly. "Are you scared?"

Will shakes his head but the lie is transparent. He doesn’t want to push his luck, doesn’t want to pull ire from a man he has already disappointed once.

"I'm tired and sore," Will says instead.

"And horny."

"It will go away."

"You think so?"

Will frowns and turns to bury his face in the pillow again, seeking warmth and comfort within it. After a moment, Anthony’s fingers carding through his hair, Will laughs, soft and adorable.

"He did tell us to play," he reasons. "And to come to him often..."

“But if you want to rest,” Anthony shrugs, drawing away in inches, laughing as Will snares his arms around him, dragged against the sheets. “By all means, stay and try not to think about how hard you are…”

“Anthony -”

“Will,” he answers, grinning, brows raised. Will hurts, but every stretch of muscle only raises the heat already pooled stiff between his legs. He whines as Anthony slumps from bed to stand with a curse under his breath.

All along his back, his legs, his bottom, are marks. Some thin white lines scar nearly invisible over the prefect’s pale skin. Other blotches bloom livid violet. Red stripes from the night before welt thick along his thighs. He bends to stretch, hands around his ankles, and moans a particularly foul curse at the pain of it, body gone rigid in sleep. He tilts his head aside to watch Will, upside-down, watching him in return.

“You want to impress him, don’t you?”

Will swallows, grown all the harder from seeing Anthony bent this way, his punishment worn with pride and displayed like a trophy.

"I can't bend like that," he offers weakly, and Anthony grins before straightening up once more.

"It's just practice."

"For him?"

"For the track team," Anthony grins. He turns and beckons Will closer with a crooked finger. "Out of bed, come on. Change your underwear - you can borrow some of mine if you want - and change into something nice in your room."

"Why?"

"Because presentation is everything."

Getting up hurts. It hurts a lot. But Will accepts a pair of briefs from the prefect before bundling his own clothes up into a ball in his hands. He listens at the door for any sound, but it is too early yet for stirring students, and Will slips from Anthony’s room to return to his own to change.

Anthony listens to the younger boy’s hurried footsteps click down the hall. If Will is anything like himself, which he must be - enough, anyway - then he’ll stand in his room for long minutes and consider not going. He’ll wash himself down in the small sink there, and tell himself all the reasons he should not. He’ll take out his clothes, the newest set of his uniform that he has, and by the time he’s laid it flat he’ll have convinced himself he isn’t going to do this again.

That it’s dirty.

That it’s wrong.

That someone should be told because headmasters aren’t supposed to do things like this.

He’ll start to slip into his clothes, as Anthony does now, and hiss a prayer or a curse or both when he has to pull his shorts up over his marks and he’ll touch himself, clutching his stiff little cock tight. Then tighter. He will stand shaking until the urge to come briefly passes and he can breathe again.

And then he’ll go.

His cheeks are still ruddy when he finds Anthony in the hall, slouched against the wall, robe folded over himself beneath his arms. The prefect grins and turns to go, but pauses, and beckons will close.

Hand against Will’s jaw, he leans close and whispers, “Don’t swear. He hates swearing.” Anthony pauses, reconsiders, and then grins. “Or do, and see what happens.”

Without another word, without another touch, he turns down the hallway, and smiles as he hears Will’s hurried steps catch up behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Anthony nudges Will gently, smile warm, and the younger boy steps forward, nervous and unsure. He fidgets with his robes, sets one foot behind the other before standing straight again. He blushes furiously and swallows, and finally raises his eyes to the headmaster._
> 
> _"I wanted to show you I had learned from my punishment," he says._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

By the time they are at the office door, Will’s heart is in his throat and he can barely breathe. As excited as he is nervous, and hard, so hard, in his borrowed underwear. Anthony leans against him gently, nuzzling fondly against Will's neck before setting a hand to the middle of his back and pushing him forward to knock on the door for them.

Will does, hesitant and quiet, louder when Anthony prompts him to, again. He thinks perhaps Hannibal is not in his office, perhaps he is asleep still, enjoying his weekend after his busy evening.

Surely he isn't here.

Surely he won’t -

There are footfalls behind the door and Will’s eyes widen, remain that way when the door opens and Hannibal stands beyond, shirt unbuttoned at his throat and sleeves rolled up to his elbows in elegant folds.

Will can’t stop looking at him. And when Anthony steps up close and greets Hannibal properly on behalf of them both, all Will can manage is a quiet _please_.

“Good morning, headmaster,” Anthony chimes. He folds his hands behind his back and lets his robe fall loose around him, revealing the ridge of his cock, straining hard against the grey twill cotton of his shorts. They aren’t required to wear their robes on weekends, but it has quite an effect, and Dr. Lecter’s brow piques, just a little.

Will has to grudgingly admire the showmanship of it.

“Good morning, Mr. Dimmond,” he responds, accent curling the words curiously. “And good morning, William.”

An elbow from the prefect finds its way to Will’s rib and he flinches, returning the greeting in a blushing mumble.

“Come in,” Hannibal says, stepping back to allow them entrance, gaze focused with sharp interest. “I must admit surprise to seeing you both here so early.”

Anthony walks through with his head held high, Will follows at a shuffle, trying to not rub his shorts too hard against himself and failing. Within, the office is cool but not cold, only the desk lamp on to illuminate it. And the headmaster moves to lean against the desk with his arms crossed, a curious look directed at the two boys. Anthony nudges Will gently, smile warm, and the younger boy steps forward, nervous and unsure. He fidgets with his robes, sets one foot behind the other before standing straight again. He blushes furiously and swallows, and finally raises his eyes to the headmaster.

"I wanted to show you I had learned from my punishment," he says.

“Have you,” Hannibal asks, not in doubt, but in pleasant surprise. His gaze skims to Anthony, a flicker of approval and amusement both as the prefect’s smile blazes bright, and he motions to the large windows at the end of the room. Anthony goes to tug them open, despite being three times his height, and Hannibal studies the restraint in his awkward gait for a moment more. The office overlooks the playing fields, yet empty, from the third floor, and Hannibal sets his hands against his desk as illumination spills over the room.

“Please,” he says to Will, spreading his hand palm upward. “Show me.”

Will shivers, smile pulling at his lips in nervous tension before he fiddles with the button on his shorts, the zipper. He had not found his belt that morning, and, mortified, remembered where he had left it.

Carefully, he peels his shorts down his legs, straightens with a wince, and then does the same with his underwear, revealing his hard cock, the small wet patch on his briefs. When Will straightens this time, he is blushing and trembling, exposed and suddenly loving the sensation. He turns his eyes to Anthony and sees him bite his lip.

It sends a shiver down his spine before he turns back to the headmaster.

Dr. Lecter lets his gaze linger, down the supple planes of Will’s sleek body, lissome and young. Down to the dark brown tuft of hair between his legs, and his little cock, flushed pink and curving up towards his flat belly. He studies him until Will’s blush darkens, until he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, until the weight of Hannibal’s attention on his bare body becomes overpowering and Will is forced to choke back a small sound.

“Good, William.”

Will’s knees nearly give way at the words, shaking outside of his control. He fists his hands at his sides and hopes the headmaster can’t hear his sigh trembling as hard as the rest of him. Hannibal pushes lightly from the desk and with one long step, closes the distance between them. He grasps Will’s jaw in his hand and thumbs gently over his lips.

“Very good.”

The headmaster looks to the prefect, and it takes no more than that for Anthony to return to them. He shrugs out of his robe, snaps off his tie with one swift tug, graceful despite the burgeoning impediment between his legs. Hannibal does not stop him from baring himself, charmed - perhaps - by the bravado of it.

“I feel as though this deserves a reward,” the headmaster muses. “You’ve played together so beautifully already, after all. Lay together upon the couch, facing one another. William, beneath. Mr. Dimmond, atop.”

He lets his hand drop lower, strong fingers coiling for a single stroke up Will’s erection, and then moves to lock the door.

Will does make a sound then, helpless and nervous, and looks to Anthony for instructions to follow on how bare he should be. It seems, if the beautiful naked form of the prefect is anything to go by, that he must be so, entirely. So he strips. His robe next and his tie and shirt, his shoes and socks get out side by side, clothes folded atop.

He feels so vulnerable. Entirely revealed. And when the headmaster returns to them and runs his knuckles over the hot skin of Will’s bottom, he moans before he can help it.

Crossing to the couch, Will crawls onto it and settles as best as he can, hissing both at the pain of movement and the cold of the leather beneath him. He bites his lip as Anthony crawls atop, and trembles, unsure what to do with his hands. The choice is made for him when Anthony sinks heavily atop. Will’s hands press to his chest, fingers splayed over his collarbones, and he can only release another little noise when Anthony kisses the corner of his mouth.

“Mr. Dimmond,” comes the mild warning from behind the desk.

“Apologies, sir,” Anthony answers. He rubs his nose beside Will’s instead, so close, so terribly close, but not daring to touch lips again. “We’ve become acquainted, you see.”

“I’m pleased to hear it,” the headmaster responds, watching the two boys for a moment before opening a drawer. “I am less pleased that you’ve unbridled your tongue. I was certain I’d trained such impertinence out of you.”

Unseen by Hannibal, but certainly seen by Will, Anthony grins and wrinkles his nose. It lasts for only an instant, and sterns up quickly when Hannibal slips closed the desk drawer again. The prefect has a whisper still perched on his lips, so he tucks them between his teeth and adjusts in tandem with Will, leather squeaking, to fit their bodies together.

Dr. Lecter’s footfalls are silent over the carpet, but every sound is hard to hear for Will when all that fills the space between his ears is a rising ebb and flow of nerves, desire, heartbeat, breath. The latter escapes him in a rush when he sees that the headmaster does not have in his hands a cane, but instead a small glass bottle, a viscous clear liquid within.

“Play,” Hannibal suggests, eyes wrinkling in the corners. “Barring more of Mr. Dimmond’s newly rediscovered attitude, you will not be punished today.”

Will smiles despite himself, entire body alive with energy and need, and when he turns to Anthony again he finds himself nuzzled. It is silly, suddenly, to be so nervous. Surely this is fine, both of them comfortable and the headmaster so pleased with them. Surely nothing is amiss?

Will arches up and strokes his cock against Anthony's with a quiet sigh. He wants to rub harder, bring himself over and Anthony with him. He wants, suddenly, to press against the headmaster as well, touched and kissed and fondled by the older man. By strong hands and careful fingers and deliberate dedication.

He wonders if he will be allowed to ask.

Experimentally, he reaches between them to stroke the prefect up, feeling Anthony pant softly above him. And his other hand he stretches out, fingers splayed, to Hannibal.

The headmaster tilts his head, and for a moment, is genuinely surprised. It is such a sweet gesture, generous and winsome, from such a gentle and mischievous boy. Hannibal reaches out to trace his knuckles down Will’s cheek, blushing pink on pale, following the length of his limb until he takes the boy’s little fingers in hand. Without releasing him, Hannibal takes a seat on the couch beside Will’s head, and hums approval when the first-year squirms up to lay his head in the doctor’s lap.

“You need not work so hard,” Hannibal whispers to Will, watching the movement of his hand around both boys’ cocks. “Squeeze, just there around the head. There you are, William. You’ve given your prefect goosebumps.”

Anthony laughs, helpless, entirely aware of how little power he wields considering the headmaster’s knowledge of him, entirely aware of how much power he wields considering the man’s affection. They are a tangle of soft limbs, smooth and pale, delicate as eggshell but soft as silk. Hannibal watches, rapt, as they adjust their knobby knees and bony hips, as they learn their body’s own capabilities, and that of the other.

“May I kiss him?” Anthony asks, and the headmaster inclines his head.

“What a relief for you both that you have found your manners again, Mr. Dimmond. You may.”

Will barely manages a breath before he is kissed, and he closes his eyes and grins into it, cheeks flushed and body covered in a thin film of sweat from his pleasure. He wants more, knows he grows greedy with it. He continues to stroke Anthony as directed, feeling him shudder, and makes a helpless sound of his own when the prefect’s clever fingers seek lower between his legs. Will’s other hand, still held, is considered as it clings to Hannibal’s larger one. Delicate fingers, unpracticed and nervous, bend and flex against him. With a quiet sound, Hannibal carefully turns Will’s hand to set between his own legs, delighting at the way Will shivers, tenses, softly moans.

And turns his fingers in the awkward position to stroke.

“You’re becoming brave,” Hannibal says, resting a hand in Will’s hair to card softly through his curls. His words catch, breath shortened, as Will pushes harder against the headmaster’s thickening cock, hot beneath his trousers. “It seems you did learn a lesson last night.”

Anthony lifts himself on shaking arms, back bowed and bottom clenching as he ruts into the tunnel of Will’s hand. He whimpers, needy, a soft whine that draws Hannibal’s gaze to him in an instant. As if in retribution, Will squeezes his fingers, trying to grasp the ridge of Hannibal’s cock, to pull back his attention.

“Hush,” Hannibal whispers to Anthony, stroking his hair softly back from his face. He touches a kiss to his brow, to his temple, to just beneath his eye and his thumb follows the path his lips mark. Downward, until near enough to kiss but remaining at bay, Hannibal strokes his thumb between their mouths, and parts Anthony’s lips. “You will both have your turn.”

With a reluctance that fills Will’s chest with a pride so intense it feels as if birds are trapped between his ribs, Hannibal removes his thumb from Anthony’s lips and Will’s hand from his cock. He guides both boys back to each other and spreads his legs wide. Lovely things, beautiful boys, Anthony moves first but Will follows, and across Hannibal’s lap they lay instead, with Will’s head against the arm of the couch, flat on his belly, and Anthony atop, their toes curling against the slick leather.

Hannibal reaches for the little bottle set aside, and slicks his fingers.

“Mr. Dimmond can tell you,” the headmaster says, “that good behavior is rewarded. Would you like your reward, William? Anthony?”

Will shivers and turns to look at his friend, at the boy who shares this with him, and grins, burying his face against his arms. This is overwhelming, frightening, exciting. Will suddenly wants to learn everything, do everything and become someone the headmaster will be proud to summon to his office, someone Anthony enjoys spending and sharing his time with.

Will squirms and rubs a little against Hannibal’s leg, hoping the reward is the man’s hand in pleasure now that he has felt it in pain.

"Please," Will murmurs, and beside him Anthony near purrs in delight.

"Yes, please, yes."

Hannibal’s breath holds deep, at the sweet-voiced pleas, the gentle begging, the weight of two boys across his lap who both bend so readily for their headmaster. Anthony nuzzles Will’s hair, watching the older man in expectation, and even were Hannibal’s new protege not here, he could not deny this boy when he holds such need in his eyes. He cannot deny either of them.

Nor, in truth, does he desire to.

Fingers glistening, Hannibal stretches to reach behind them both, both boys spread over his thighs. Their combined weight is heavy, separate they are delightfully soft and spry. As a conductor might, manipulating the very air into music, so their headmaster manipulates their voices into moans, circling their openings with slippery fingertips. The skin there is soft, yielding - pliant, it gives when he teases pressure against them, and Will bucks down against Hannibal’s leg as Anthony rocks firm across Will’s tailbone.

“You were right to come to me,” he tells them. “A credit to your willpower, to resist the temptation you provide each other.”

Will moans, helpless, still untrained in holding his orgasm when he is so close to it. He digs his fingers into the couch, lets one hand slip down to Hannibal's leg and desperately grasps it. Above him, Anthony presses his own moan into Will’s shoulder and arches his back higher for the familiar fingers penetrating him.

He gets a second in praise.

Will yelps in surprise when another is introduced into him as well.

"He is so good," Anthony mumbles. "So good in taking -"

“Show him,” Hannibal tells his prefect, his poet, his first. Anthony blinks, his movements thick with the stupor of pleasure and submission, and slowly curls a hand beneath Will’s chin. Clumsily, the corners of their mouths meet. Anthony sweeps his tongue across Will’s mouth and sighs his breath out all at once, before nuzzling into the younger boy’s hair.

No sooner do they adjust, bodies spreading and hearts thundering, than Hannibal spreads his fingers. Twin muscles quiver almost painfully tight around his fingers as he works them wide. He can feel dampness issue from his erection and soak into the surrounding material. He can feel it drip hot through the coarse coils of hair around his cock.

He leans over them, arms stretched and wrists contorted to fill both boys who have sought him out. His nose brushes Anthony’s temple and the prefect shoves his hands to the sofa on either side of Will, pushing upward until Hannibal rewards him with a kiss of his own. Mouths clicking damp, firm with Hannibal’s demand and gentled by Anthony’s yielding, Will tilts his head to watch them, and feels his chest ache with envy as his cock swells harder still.

A third finger makes him whimper, and as Hannibal breaks the kiss to look down at him, to witness this sweet moment of innocent surrender and discovery, Anthony nuzzles against him. Fondly, Hannibal turns his head to him and keeps his eyes on Will.

It is intimate, it is familiar and earned and Will trembles hard, release so close. Hannibal recognizes the motion, the erratic twitches and hitched breaths, and when he says Will’s name and Will looks up, Hannibal thinks he is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

"Sweet boy," he murmurs, "does it feel good?"

Will nods, shaking, hands seeking out Anthony’s fingers, Hannibal’s arm, anything to ground him.

"Too good I -" Will swallows. "I don’t know what to do."

“Come for me,” his headmaster tells him, a smile rising beneath his eyes. “Both of you.”

He turns his fingers as best he can to rub firm against the little almond-sized nubs inside them. Smooth and slick with lube, he pushes fast, fierce, fucking each boy open with his fingers as a chorus of moans rise from Anthony and Will in tandem. They are beautiful, with their gangly limbs curling and stretching, knees splaying wide, fingers tangling together, dark hair spilling against the pale skin of the other. They are perfect.

Anthony breaks first, within breaths of hearing his command. His body clenches around Hannibal’s fingers, his spine twists convex and his bottom tightens. Every muscle pulled taut, only weak little thrusts betray the stripes of white, pearlescent heat that his cock projects against Will’s back. It would be enough for Will to finish, any of this, all of it.

It would be enough if the head of his cock weren’t already leaking damp spots against the headmaster’s leg.

“William,” Dr. Lecter whispers, as Anthony gasps breathless against Will’s hair. “Do as I say.”

Will whimpers, suddenly shy, embarrassed, that he will make such a mess against the headmaster’s leg. But the fingers spread thick and deliberate, seeking that spot in him that sends sparks behind his eyes. Above him, Anthony moans softly, nuzzles him once more, encouraging and sweet.

Will damn near convulses when orgasm hits him. He rubs down hard against Hannibal’s leg, spreads his knees so that one foot slips from the couch and he spreads his toes on the floor instead, holding himself up between one man and a beautiful boy.

He can hardly breathe, and turns instinctively into the damp hand that finds his hair and strokes it from his face. His body sings, with pleasure and residual pain. With absolutely everything at once.

"Oh," he whimpers, bites his lip and releases it again. "Holy shit."

Anthony snorts a laugh against the back of Will’s neck, nuzzling the slick sweat there and pressing a grin to his skin. Sticky heat soaks into the headmaster’s trouser leg, dampening skin beneath, smeared by the lazy aftershocks of rutting that drive Will’s hips forwards and back. Hannibal withdraws his fingers from both boys with a hum, circling the tender skin stretched scarlet from the rough fingerfuck he gave them.

“Language, naughty boy,” he warns, a growl masked beneath a purr. He runs a hand up the ivory-smooth curve of Anthony’s back and grips his hair just firmly enough to tug him to his knees, reveling in the flowering of his lips as they part wide and red.

“I do not abide coarse language,” Hannibal says, cock twitching harder as Will tenses at the words. “Nor messes.”

Anthony grins, and no sooner does the headmaster releases the fistful of black strands than the prefect bends again. He drags a tongue through the pearly semen pooled at the small of Will’s back, lips glossed pale with it. Obedient, well-trained, he curls his tongue to hold his own come thick and salty against it and show Hannibal.

Will can hardly see their kiss, across his shoulder, less a shared affection - though there is that too - than a claiming. Hannibal’s lips cover Anthony’s, his tongue presses between them. He licks the prefect’s release from his mouth and Will feels his cock squeeze another bead of semen free, milked dry, as a thread of come pulls long and snaps between the mouths of the headmaster and the older boy.

Will waits, obediently arching for Anthony to clean him with attentive tongue and soft lips, little sounds escaping him as he works. Will feels his stomach tense at the idea of clean up after himself; he never has with his mouth before. He doesn’t know the taste or sensation of it. And it would have seeped into the fabric now...

When Anthony is finished, sitting back with a little squirm against his well fingered bottom, Will raises his eyes to the headmaster. Unsure, little, suddenly. He swallows and pushes up on all fours to regard the mess he made, smears of white seeping into dark, once-pristine fabric. Will’s brows furrow and he ducks his head to obey the unspoken instructions. 

Careful tongue curls over the slick mess and Will laps it up. The taste is not unpleasant, just unusual, and he works as neatly as he can before sitting up to look at Hannibal apologetically. His pants are still a mess. He is still hard in his pants, tenting the fabric Will had so sweetly laved with his tongue. He brings a hand up to wipe his mouth.

His wrist, delicate and slight, is held by strong fingers that press around it only gently. The headmaster tilts his head, a bare shift matched by an incremental lift of his brows. Will curls his fingers into a little fist into which Hannibal works his thumb, stroking against his palm as he leans near. He does not mount his mouth over Will’s as he did to Anthony, but merely closes his lips against the corner of Will’s own.

The touch of his tongue, only the tip, jerks Will’s heart faster. His lips spread, lovely in uncertainty, elegant in innocent hesitation, nevermind that there is little enough innocence remaining between them now as Hannibal savors Will’s release from his lips. It is almost sweet, retaining the virginal taste of spring beneath the salt and sweat.

“Very good,” he murmurs, giving Will’s hand a slight squeeze as he leans back. Will nearly yelps as Anthony snares his arms around him from behind, pale limbs wrapped lean around Will’s skinny body and chin on his shoulder. His grin widens as Hannibal pulls a tissue from the box beside the couch to wipe his fingers clean. “Three lashes, for swearing, at such time when the marks from last night have healed sufficiently.”

Will shivers almost violently for a moment before settling, lip between his teeth again as he regards Hannibal before him.

He wants to kiss him again.

He wants to feel himself pinned beneath him, instructions and threats whispered in his ear.

He wants to feel his hands. In every way possible.

He sets a hand against Anthony’s and strokes it, enjoying the closeness more and more as it is given. He likes him, sweet, clever, confident boy that Anthony is. Will hopes, hopes, that Anthony likes him as well, without the traits mentioned.

He lets his eyes rest between the headmaster’s legs and curls his toes gently on the couch. A heartbeat, more, and then -

"Will you not seek relief yourself, sir?" Will asks softly.

A gentle squeeze from Anthony, shifting closer, provides assurance despite the elevator-drop in Will’s belly from asking. The headmaster regards them both, his prefect and his new boy, and takes in the trembling eagerness of the latter. A smile gathers beneath his eyes and he inclines his head.

“It will not negate your punishment,” he reminds Will, whose eyes widen. He shakes his head quickly.

“I didn’t - I don’t,” he stammers softly, fingers tightening over Anthony’s arm. “I don’t want it to.”

Hannibal’s lips part, and he sighs. It is a rare moment of release from one who carries himself with such particular bearing, every movement considered and controlled. The firm line inside his pants rises, pulsing, at the gentle boy’s sweet offer, and Hannibal hooks a hand against Will’s jaw to draw him close. Anthony leans against Will’s back, grin tucked against his shoulder, and he watches as their noses brush, and the headmaster’s mouth traces over Will’s parted lips.

“Then I would enjoy it, very much,” he murmurs. “Mr. Dimmond, will you teach him this, as well?”

Anthony groans softly in pleasure and nuzzles hard against Will before kissing his shoulder and slipping to the floor on his knees. He crawls, an unnecessary but beautiful show of his body, from where he knelt on the floor to between Hannibal’s legs. The headmaster just watches, spreading them wider as Anthony softly nuzzles in request for him to.

Elegant fingers come up to work Hannibal's belt, the button and fly of his pants. Will watches Anthony's entire bearing slip to submission again, eyes glazed and lips parted as he leans in to suck Hannibal's cock through the fabric of his underwear.

Hannibal sighs and rests his head back with a smile, eyes slipping to Will next to him, who watches rapt.

"It is anticipation and pleasure," Hannibal tells him, as Anthony continues his gentle worship. "Take your time, and in time, you will take it all."

Will sucks his lower lip between his teeth and nods. He curls his hands to fists against his thighs, belly aching with arousal already, too soon after his release. Anthony splays his hands against the headmaster’s stomach, kneading catlike against the soft fabric and firm muscle beneath. His hair falls into his face, but his eyes remain upturned, tongue stroking wet lines against the tight-fitting cotton. Spine arching into a deep bend, Will watches for a moment the dip in the small of the prefect’s back, and how his hips push higher.

He is beautiful, he has always been, but like this especially. Practiced elegance and easy grace coil through Anthony’s body as he shudders a moan against Hannibal’s lap, teeth tugging the fabric, lips wrapping around the headmaster’s hardness beneath. Will wonders if he’ll ever be as talented, as confident and lovely.

As if in answer, Hannibal rests a hand in Will’s hair, tugging his curls straight and then loosening, again and again. With his hooded gaze on Will, and the hint of a smile still gentling his harsh features, the headmaster hooks a thumb into the waistband of his briefs to bring them low.

Anthony makes a sound of utter intoxicated want and takes Hannibal almost immediately to the back of his throat, pulling off quickly to do it again. Hannibal settles his free hand against the back of Anthony’s head and gently guides him. He allows a look to his prefect before turning back to watch Will respond. 

"He is such a good boy. A hungry and clever little thing, as you will be, one day.”

Another whimper from Anthony and Hannibal holds him down a little harder. Not in cruelty but in the need to press deeper into his boy.

"When you suck me, William, be careful if you use teeth."

"Why? " Will's breath hitches and Hannibal’s large palm cups his jaw.

"Because it is a remarkable sensation to be reminded of the power of submission,” Hannibal tells him, leaning near to trace a kiss against Will’s freckled cheek. “If you are too harsh, you will hurt me. Too gentle, and it will be unconvincing.” He tilts his head downward and turns Will’s to watch. “Mr. Dimmond.”

With an obscene, sloppy sucking sound, Anthony allows Hannibal to plunge past his lips, far enough to gently choke him. Fingers splay and his body goes rigid, easing quickly when Hannibal relents. Dark eyes brimming with tears, Anthony watches his headmaster and curls his lips over his teeth, dragging them around the fat, flush length of Hannibal’s cock.

Will’s breath gushes from him all at once and he squirms closer, nuzzling his headmaster’s cheek. Hesitation and uncertainty, morality and guilt fade in an instant. Even with his mouth, his chin, smeared with spit, Anthony - proud and elegant Anthony - appears nearly drunk with satisfaction. Will imagines Hannibal holding Anthony’s head down, fucking him until he gags. He imagines Hannibal bending Anthony over as he did before, but putting his cock in his ass until the desk rattles beneath. He imagines Hannibal’s release, copious ribbons of white, streaked across Anthony’s face.

With a whimper, Will clutches his little cock, as if somehow that might stop it from hardening more.

“Do you want to try?” Hannibal whispers, sighing warmth against Will’s hair.

Will shivers and arches closer, eyes on Anthony now, wanting to be as talented, as good, as lovely. He wants to be just like him, but better. Friendly competition between pretty, kinky little boys. 

"I wouldn't be any good," Will whispers, and Hannibal hums disapproval against him.

"Good comes with practice, Will. And you will certainly have that." Hannibal curls his hand in Will’s hair and tugs it enough to arch him. "Show me."

Will swallows, parts his lips, and realizes he couldn't leave even if he wanted to. He tries to nod, and is let go to be allowed to scramble to the floor along with Anthony.

"Mr. Dimmond," Hannibal suggests quietly, when the prefect has sat back to watch his friend, catching Anthony's bright smile with an answering warmth. "On your back," he says. 

For a moment, the boy blinks, confused, but then it dawns, clear, and he shifts to obey, lying on the ground and waiting for Will to kneel before slithering up between his legs, kissing Will’s thigh when he tries to protest.

"Consider this positive reinforcement training," Hannibal suggests, drawing one foot up to press his toe to the floor, his heel up against the couch. "As you work, so will he." Hannibal watches the flush skitter beneath Will’s eyes and folds his fingers beneath the boy’s chin. "And once you make me come, I will grant you your release."

Will moans, shaking, eyes wide, and even as his mouth parts to protest, to beg mercy, the headmaster silences him with another soft command of his own. 

"Begin."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Will's toes curl in his shoes and Will holds his breath, as though that alone will help the slow descent of the heavy fabric against his leg. It is always that sock. Always the left. And he knows what it means, when it slips low enough to notice. He knows the headmaster’s demand for perfection and presentation._
> 
> _He knows, and at once he wills the sock to slip faster, and hopes it does not._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> [Looking for more stories, sooner? Find out how you can get them via the [Whiskey & Blood Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/wwhiskeyandbloodd)!]

Will stands still. Legs just past shoulder-width apart and toes pointed a little inward, hands behind his back, fingers working nervously together. His tie is on straight, checked by Anthony before he left the room that morning with the prefect’s bright grin and blessing. Anthony has class. Will has been called away from his.

He can hear the old clock behind Hannibal’s desk tick vibrating seconds away between them. Hannibal is writing, beautiful looped hand. Reports, perhaps, or a letter. He writes meticulously, the pen scratching through the thick paper to the old wood of the desk beneath. Will knows how that desk feels against his chest. Against his knees. He knows the taste of it, he knows the divots and bends of age. He knows where he has left nail marks on it and has been soundly punished for doing so.

Will swallows.

The clock ticks.

Hannibal writes his letters.

And slowly, almost imperceptibly, Will’s left sock begins to slowly slip down his calf.

He doesn’t move. Even when he can feel the fine, downy hairs on his legs catch - each and every one - against the knit grey wool. Even when he can feel it creep down against the back of his knee. Will bites his lip to restrain a sound and curls his fingers together tighter.

 _Stand_ , Hannibal told him. _Do not move until I allow it_.

There’s no reason for it, not that Will can remember, anyway. And for all the minutes that have tick-tick-ticked by he still can't think of anything. He's been better about tucking in his shirt. He's made sure his tie is knotted properly, mostly thanks to Anthony's swift and practiced adjustments. He's even been good about combing his hair down with water when it sticks up too much.

Will has done all his homework.

Will hasn't skipped class even once.

And even though he's come so close it's been painful to stop himself, he hasn't come once outside of the headmaster's office. Not when Anthony put his mouth on him, or touched his bottom, not when he touched his own bottom in the shower and put a finger inside to see how it might feel. It hurt, and he nearly lost it then, and had to squeeze down with his other hand so hard to stop himself that he walked with a limp for the rest of the day.

His toes curl in his shoes and Will holds his breath, as though that alone will help the slow descent of the heavy fabric against his leg. It is always that sock. Always the left. And he knows what it means, when it slips low enough to notice. He knows the headmaster’s demand for perfection and presentation. 

He knows, and at once he wills the sock to slip faster, and hopes it does not.

It does, of course, inevitably, and in the space of six more ticks, it rests midway down Will’s calf and he can do little more than whimper, quietly, just once. His eyes flick up immediately to catch the dark ones that watch him, lip between his teeth in preemptive apology. He doesn’t move, though he wants to. He doesn’t ask, though he can taste the words at the back of his tongue.

In time with the tap of the second-hand, Dr. Lecter's pen clicks to the desk, and he folds his hands together.

Once it passes his calf, there's no return. It will bunch up around his ankle in a messy lump of grey and Will's whole leg will be bare between shoes and the hem of his shorts. He won't be able to pretend then, that maybe it's just the too-dark lighting in the room, or maybe it's just a sock that was made slightly smaller. He won't be able to pretend his little cock isn't stiffening slip-by-slip of every stitch.

He muffles another weak noise, and tries to ignore the bead of sweat that trickles down his temple.

Will wants to shove his sock down. Both of them, suddenly, and grasp his ankles and wait to feel Hannibal's hand or belt or cane against his backside. He wonders which it will be, how he'll suffer, and if finally the dark tunneling of his vision that occurs when he's punished will consume him entirely.

He wonders if he'll be allowed to come, and draws a sudden breath.

"Mr. Graham."

“Yes, sir?” Will asks, pushing himself to stand straight again despite knowing that it’s too late, that no matter how good he is now, this one thing outside of his control has betrayed him to failure. His heart beats quicker in excitement. His cock twitches harder in his pants, and he knows the headmaster can see, it’s deliberate that he stand with legs spread before him when he comes here.

"I seek your opinion, on a matter of paramount importance."

The headmaster's voice rumbles all the way to the bottom of Will's belly, so heavy his knees weaken and his skin tingles with goosebumps. He feels the depth of it reach between his legs and curl like fingers around his balls, holding firm. Dampness presses against his stomach where his hardness is held by his underpants.

"Of course," Will whispers, "sir."

He holds his breath as if by doing so, he might hold his sock up, too.

"What is to be done," continues Dr. Lecter, "when all attempts to resolve a problem have failed? When one has done ought within their power to ensure success - positive reinforcement, and negative. Independent endeavors and in tandem with another. Mr. Graham -"

The sock drops.

Will's eyes widen, unblinking. Hannibal does not look to the errant bit of uniform, he does not look from Will's eyes at all, but he knows. Will knows he knows.

"Sir," he whispers.

"What am I to do with you?"

Will swallows again. He has been asked, sometimes, what should be done with Anthony, as he stood bent over and tormented. He has been at similar mercy of his friend as well. It became a game for them.

But for himself... to suggest a punishment for himself is something Will has only ever imagined, alone and hard in the shower, trying to hold back his orgasm. 

"It is unacceptable, sir," he breathes, "that I not make the effort." This is a game too. Will can see the headmaster's eyes darken, narrow just a little, with a bare twitch of the bottom lids. "I need to be taught to remember."

Hannibal raises an eyebrow and waits. Will hasn't answered him. The insolence adds up the longer he dithers. Will shivers. It has been three days since he has been allowed to come.

"Please teach me to hold my posture, sir, so my childish squirming will not have this happen again."

When the headmaster inclines his head, it is all Will can do not to sigh out all his air at once, in a big, frightful gust that would just as surely undo him in his pants, from relief alone. He remains still. Silent. Watching Dr. Lecter stand with what Will hopes is a dutiful expression, rather than one of giddy apprehension, he shivers as keys clink softly together.

Hannibal unlocks the thin drawer topmost in his desk, and surveys his options.

Bypassing crop and cane, skimming his fingers over the neatly arranged straps of leather of his cat o’ nine tails, he selects instead an implement that beside the rest appears unassuming. Thinner than all, only half the width of the long drawer that overlays his lap when he is at work, the switch feels nearly fragile in his hand as he takes it up.

The whistle through the air as he turns his wrist betrays a different nature entirely.

Hannibal does not need to look at Will to know he shivers at the sound. He does not need to lift his eyes to know how wide Will’s beautiful blue ones have become behind his glasses. He spares a glance only as high as the bare leg before him, knobby-kneed and fine-haired, and the stretch of pale thigh above it, disappearing beneath little woolen shorts.

He returns to the drawer.

“No matter what inner turmoil belabors our spirit,” Hannibal says, “no matter what manner of obligation or burden distracts or dismays us, we are to always show composure, especially in times of duress. By allowing others to see the involuntary tensions of our body, we allow them to read us. To see us. To know us, as we are innately. In perfect carriage, William, there is perfect secrecy. And in secrecy, there is power.”

Will’s blood hums in his ears and he tries to swallow the sensation away. It stays.

“Yes, sir,” he says.

He has learned, now, over the weeks this has been going on, how to properly reply to the headmaster, he has learned how to assume most of the positions Hannibal wants him to be in, he is slowly learning to hold them. He has learned that it is much harder to stay away from touching himself when Anthony is near, he has learned that he can sleep well only in Anthony’s bed.

Every day he has learned.

He is as hungry for knowledge here as he is good at retaining it outside the office. He aches for it as his thighs ache after a lesson, and he tenses them now, before relaxing them again. He watches the headmaster take something else from the little drawer, before sliding it closed with a quiet whisper and click. 

This object doesn’t appear to be for striking. It is in the shape of a cone, tapered off with gentle ridges to its blunt point. It is clear, perhaps plastic, perhaps glass, and fits comfortably into Hannibal’s large palm when he curls his fingers against it. Will swallows, he raises his eyes.

“For every action -” Hannibal begins, with a sweep of the switch in his other hand and a shiver from Will in response.

“There is an equal and opposite reaction.”

“And so to apply that to our lessons here,” he continues, circling the desk, “for every mistake -”

Will’s throat clicks as he swallows, fingers curled so tightly together that they’re numb. “There is an equal and opposite -”

He freezes. He freezes and he doesn’t know what word the headmaster wants from him and he can’t think of any words at all or having ever known a single one. Will is mute, shockingly mute, his head humming loud enough to drown out thought entirely.

Perhaps he has never known how to speak. Perhaps he has never heard English before. Perhaps -

“Mr. Graham.”

“Punishment,” he breathes, shoulders curling in relief as the headmaster’s eyes narrow in approval.

“Your trousers and your underpants, please. Around your ankles.”

Will makes a sound, then, a helpless little thing, and keeps his eyes on Hannibal as he steps closer. Will brings his hands to his pants, without looking away, without even blinking, like a mouse hypnotized by a cobra. He undoes the buttons and zipper and lets his shorts drop to the ground around his feet. HIs eyes remain on Hannibal as he slips his fingers beneath the waistband of his cotton underwear and bends to slip those down too.

He takes a moment, for personal satisfaction, to slip the still-high sock down to the ground too.

When he stands straight again, his little cock is hard, his thighs tremble, and Will can’t help but smile as he sets his hands behind his back again. Like a good, obedient boy.

“Naughty, disobedient boy,” purrs the headmaster, with a swift snap of the switch against Will’s bottom. His lips part but the sharp slice of pain against his skin is so intense he can’t gasp, eyes welling watery even before the simmering heat of struck skin begins to burn hot. When he manages a sound again, it’s a splintered, broken-glass moan of pain and pleasure both. A bead of precome leaves a glistening trail down his cock.

“I did not tell you to lower your socks, William, you will bring them up again and remain bent, hands on your knees.”

Will nods, voice still stolen by the sharp burn of pain against his skin. He bends, keeping his knees as straight as he can, and works his socks up his legs again, folding them carefully, as per uniform regulation, beneath his knees. Then he sets his hands against his knees and remains as he is, waiting.

“Open your mouth, please.”

He does. Already it waters, with the memory of salty skin spreading his lips wide as Hannibal slid against his tongue, the closer recollection of how Anthony’s sweat tastes as Will teased him near to coming. Without being asked, he extends his tongue.

“Good,” comes the purr from his headmaster, along with a sinuous stroke of the switch up the backs of his legs. Will shivers, but keeps his hands on his knees, fingernails turning his skin white where they press. He doesn’t dare reach for his glasses, slipping precariously down his nose, but he watches instead above their rims as Dr. Lecter stands before him.

The curious thing in his hand is produced, dense glass glittering as Hannibal holds it for him to see. Shaped like a pine tree, narrow at the top and widening downward, before cutting in to the trunk that Hannibal holds between his fingers. It has a flat base, and Will wonders if perhaps it is a paperweight.

Before he has time to imagine more, it’s slipped past his tongue and between his lips.

“Keep your back straight, William, and suck.”

A small sound, not in protest but in surprise, and Will quickly presses his lips together as he’s told to make up for the error. Hannibal doesn’t punish him for it, he watches. He watches the way the clear thing slips between WIll’s lips that grow pinker and pinker with every push, he watches the way Will obediently straightens his back, straightens his legs, arches to stand presented as he’s been told. Carefully, Hannibal reaches up to take Will’s glasses from him, smiles when Will tries to make words around the plug in his mouth.

“You’re welcome,” he replies, allowing Will a few moments more to suck the toy, to warm it and slick it with spit that starts to gather at the corners of his mouth.

He is such a pretty thing, untrained and almost entirely untouched.

When Hannibal pulls the glass thing from Will’s mouth, he raises his eyes in obedient anticipation, sucking his bottom lip messily into his mouth to keep the spit from dripping to the floor. With the shadow of a smile, Hannibal thumbs a bead from the corner of Will’s mouth, and brings it to his own.

Sweet boy.

Will doesn’t turn his head to watch as Hannibal walks past him, but his cock twitches against his tummy when he loses sight of him. He has made Anthony tell him, again and again, how it feels to be fucked. He has asked question after question - if it hurts, if it feels good, how it feels at first, during, after, if it’s messy, if he likes it. Anthony has answered them all as many times as Will has asked them, grinding himself against Will’s thighs as he does.

And every time Will has come to Hannibal’s office, he has dreaded and hoped in equal parts that this, _this_ will be the time that Hannibal finally does it.

And every time he has left without, resorting to furiously pushing his finger inside himself in the shower instead.

Biting his lip, Will whimpers, eyes closed. As if he could discern, maybe, his headmaster’s actions by sound alone, he listens as the click of polished shoes stop. He holds his breath.

“Exhale, William. And do not move.”

Will opens his eyes, feels his heart beat out a panic march against his ribs, and opens his mouth to voice a question, to seek mercy, perhaps, but finds that the wind is taken out of him when something hard and cool presses to the most intimate place against him, and then pushes further in.

“Oh,” he sighs, biting his lip, knowing, at once, that it’s the glass cone that Hannibal had let him suck, knowing that since it came from the drawer, it was surely something for play, not merely a paperweight. He considers its size, remembers how it had felt against his tongue, and trembles, bending his knees a little in fear.

“Stay still, William.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “It’s -” The cone pushes deeper, and Will at once shivers and clenches hard around it. It will go deeper than his fingers, than even Hannibal’s have gone before. It will be huge in him as it tapers out. He won’t be able to take it, it can’t possibly fit. “Sir -”

A tap of the switch, no more than that, is enough that Will clenches. Or tries too, anyway, but the plug is unyielding and he feels like his body is on fire. Like he’s going to tear open. Like he’s going to make a terrible mess on his headmaster’s pristinely polished floor. The thought is terrifying, humiliating enough that his cheeks prickle hot enough to make his eyes water.

“You may voice your concerns without words. In fact,” Dr. Lecter smiles, “I insist upon it.”

Will swallows hard, and feels it all the way down where Hannibal holds the little cone inside of him. When he can breathe again, it is with a wavering moan. He closes his eyes to stop the room from spinning, but it only worsens the sensation.

Every sound he makes carries in it the same erstwhile sweetness of his spittle, swept from rosy lips that unfurl soft as petals for only two in the world. Hannibal tucks the switch beneath his arm and rests his palm against the small of Will’s back, guiding him to a deeper bend, as another twist presses the plug deeper. Will trembles beneath his hand, perhaps without realization that he does. Hannibal watches as his near-virginal opening spreads wider, the velvet-soft wrinkles around it reddening.

Will’s knees shake, he’s scared they will give out and he will fall to the floor and fail Hannibal in that as well, so he holds onto his kneecaps and bites his lip and closes his eyes again and tries, tries, not to sob out loud as his hole stretches further and further, wider and wider around the thing Hannibal pushes into him.

Maybe this is what sex is, in the end, he thinks. Maybe it’s just this agony and being made to take it, and Anthony lied the entire time about it feeling good. Maybe Anthony is just better than Will, better at taking pain, better at enjoying it, better at bending and sucking and swallowing hard -

The toy slips into Will entirely and he cries out in surprise. He is full, he is so full and it is entirely involuntary. He clenches, experimentally around the cool glass, and finds that stars flicker behind his eyes when he does. It pushes against everything good, against that sweet spot that Anthony had found for him and shown him how to find. It pushes almost too hard, and Will feels his pulse against the hot sensitive skin of his bottom, and he makes another helpless little noise.

There. Just there. That particular note that has forever eluded Hannibal in any other form in which he’s tried to capture it. Awakening. Revelation. A newfound awareness of one’s body and in turn one’s self, spilling from the perfect parted lips of a beautiful boy who may never have known such bliss.

Hannibal leaves the plug with a gentle stroke, and allows one against himself in turn, a fleeting indulgence to further savor the sweet flavor of Will that fills this space.

He rubs his palm against Will’s back and untucks the switch from beneath his arm with his dominant hand. “Now,” he says, “stand as you were.”

Will whimpers again, but obeys, walking his hands up his thighs as he straightens, gasping and panting at the unfamiliarity of it, the way it makes his entire body break out in shivers and goosebumps. His cock twitches with every breath he takes, every tiny motion has the plug pushing against him. He hates it as much as he loves it, he realizes, and holding his hands out in front of him as though to balance, Will straightens his spine and bites his lip.

He’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat, already, from nothing more than taking something up his bottom. It feels strange, it feels entirely wrong, but it feels so damn good, he can do little more than gently squirm and tremble.

He turns to look back at Hannibal, for reassurance, perhaps, or just to make sure he isn’t displeased with Will, and smiles a little when he does. Then, carefully, he sets his hands behind his back again.

“Remarkable boy,” whispers his headmaster, and the words erupt an ecstatic shiver down the length of Will’s body.

Hannibal circles him slowly, his every step carrying an underlying threat as he takes in the boy before him, from head to toe. His wild curls and his eyes as wide and blue as the sea; his scarlet cheeks and slender throat. A thin body, androgynous now, but broadening in bits and bursts across his shoulders, down his arms, narrowing his waist. His cock stands proud before him, untouched but so hard he’s leaking, above darkened balls drawn snug against his body. Lanky legs covered in downy hair, socks folded against his knees, and his pants, pooled around his feet.

In finding Anthony, his wheat among chaff, his orchid among common ferns, Hannibal did not dare imagine that he might find another boy whose proclivities would ever match his own.

In finding Will, Hannibal cannot help but wonder at his fortune.

He sets his switch beneath Will’s chin, tilting it upward. Will sets his eyes forward, his breath steady but each infused with a whisper of his voice, little moans that he does not know he makes. The switch slides slick down the front of Will’s jumper, and Hannibal traces his cock with it, considering.

“Use your words, William, and tell me how proper carriage makes you feel.”

Will tries to find the words. It’s strange, he knows he can’t slouch his shoulders, because the movement would shift the plug in him. He knows he can’t jiggle his feet because it would move the plug in him. The thought of sitting down makes him pale, and Will can feel how his cock twitches with the rush of blood towards it. He blinks, keeps his eyes on Hannibal.

“I feel dignified,” he whispers, clears his throat, continues in his proper voice, though it wavers, despite his best efforts. “I feel… I can feel everything. Every part of myself, presented.”

He doesn’t know what the right answer is, the plug rubs deliberately against him with every inhale and exhale, and Will wants nothing more than to clench, over and over, to feel it. He wonders if he can come just from that alone.

Hannibal hums, and Will knows the pitch well enough to know there is approval in it. He smiles a little, and lifts his chin a bit higher than even where his headmaster directed him. To Hannibal’s eyes, he is beautiful. Always, even in his disarray, even in moments where his control breaks to weeping orgasm.

Perhaps especially then.

“It is easy to maintain one’s self in times of peace,” Dr. Lecter says. “When there is no strife or discord, we delude ourselves into thinking this is the way that things always are. Composed and considerate, polite and restrained. The true test begins -”

Will sinks his teeth into his bottom lip.

“- when we are under duress.”

A note of alarm rises small from Will’s throat before he can stop it. And before he can release his lip to speak, to ask, to plead, to even take a breath, the switch comes down swiftly against his bottom.

The sound comes long after Will’s mouth hangs open in pain. A choked little sob of agony. His hands immediately slip to cover his bottom, hot, already, from the two swats against him. He can feel the flat end of the plug with his fingers, even just gently pushing against it hurts, it feels good, it’s overwhelming.

“William.”

Will immediately draws his fingers away from the sore skin, curling them into fists against the small of his back. He makes a sound, frightened and hurt, when Hannibal steps closer to adjust his hands, crossed behind his back, low enough to be comfortable, high enough to avoid another disobedient shift of fingers.

“Posture,” Hannibal says, whipping the switch through the air and watching Will tense and clench at the sound. “Is in the mind, William. It is a mentality and a pride. Proper carriage -” The switch comes down again, mid-sentence, with no warning, and Will closes his eyes tight so as not to cry out, trying not to sway in place as he stands. “Comes with practice, with training. And I plan to put a lot of time into both with you, William, and I expect you to learn.”

“I will,” gasps Will, blinking away the tears in his eyes. “I will learn.”

The switch leaves another scarlet line across his buttocks. Another. Striping his plush bottom with thin marks, his struck skin glows luminous as embers. He jolts as the implement clatters to the ground; he gasps as his curly hair is pulled straight between Hannibal’s fingers, and the plug rubbed between his cheeks.

“Again,” Dr. Lecter whispers, rough, “and again, and again. Until such time as no matter how your body sings with pain or pleasure or both, you are able to restrain yourself entirely. When I give you permission, you will allow your carriage to relax. When I do not, you will carry yourself with the same pride and dignity as befits a boy in my keeping. Mr. Graham,” Hannibal sighs, stroking the plug’s base, “do you understand?”

Will sobs, tears warm on his cheeks as he tries to hold his composure, tries not to tremble as he’s held, tries not to think of the pain that burns - _burns_ \- across his skin. Like a cane, but worse, much, much worse because the plug he clenches against, the one Hannibal masterfully adjusts, pushes hard against his prostate, reminds him he can’t come, that he isn’t allowed.

That he hasn’t for three days.

“Yes,” he whispers. “I understand, sir, I understand.”

Hannibal rocks the plug again, scarce movement within the tight confines of Will’s unpracticed body, and breathes in deep the helpless moan that fills his boy’s sigh. Will stands just as Hannibal holds him, head bent back and hands curled above his bottom, legs shaking but still shoulder-width apart. Despite the involuntary tremors that shake him, despite the strain that he endures, he does endure, and beautifully so.

“You will remove your shoes and your pants, entirely,” his headmaster tells him. “Your jumper, tie, and shirt. Fold them with care and lay them upon my desk. And this,” he purrs, tugging the plug and pushing it back in again, “this will remain.”

Will’s knees shake as unyielding glass presses against his prostate.

“And you will sit upon the couch, and wait for me. Now.”

Will nearly falls when he is released, gasping sharp. It is not easy to move with the plug so expertly pushed into him, but Will goes as he’s told. He bends - cheating a little, his knees bending almost against his will - to undo his laces, to toe off his shoes. He folds his shorts carefully, his underwear atop, and walks - gasping, every step a little gasp - to set them to the headmaster’s desk, just to the side of his letter.

Then Will pulls his jumper over his head, folds that as well, works open his buttons and loosens his tie, and after a moment more of gentle panting he sets those down as well. Clad, now, in only his high socks, and with the plug holding him wide, he makes his way with careful steps and a straight back towards the couch. It is leather, comfortably worn but enough so that it looks entirely intentional. 

Will resists for a moment, shuffling from foot to foot, toes against his ankle, down again. His bottom stings, the plug is so large… he can’t possibly sit and sit still. But he knows he has to, he knows he will, and he turns to carefully do so, whimpering when he does, bringing a hand to his mouth to chew his fingers to try to keep the sound inside. He settles as best he can, relishing the cool leather against his hot skin, and tries to ignore the waves upon waves of shivers that roll over him from how the plug shifts, even deeper still, within him.

He carries himself with as much composure as he can muster, and Hannibal knows he must think himself accomplished for it. He is, in truth - lesser men and certainly most boys would have crumbled long before now, ejaculating prematurely or breaking beneath the savagery of the switch. Very few others at such a tender age would tolerate a moment of this.

Which is what makes this boy, and his compatriot, so particularly special.

And yet to Hannibal’s eyes, he is still wrought with youthful sweetness, endeavoring towards what he imagines maturity must be. He sits with his legs spread wide, knees pointed out. Toes perched against the floor and heels high. Will’s fingers splay and curl in slow countertime to his pulse and sweat curls his hair stuck to his cheeks. His freckles darken amidst his blush.

Sweet boy. Beautiful boy. Rebellious and clever and mischievous boy.

Hannibal tugs a heavy armchair to face Will, and with his own practiced elegance, he sits slowly before him. With little regard for his own erection, he watches Will’s react to his gaze with a stiff jerk up against his soft stomach. Crossing his legs at the knees, Hannibal extends his hand, palm up, in a gesture of graciousness.

“Mr. Graham,” the headmaster purrs, “touch yourself.”

Will’s lips part before he can stop them. It’s such a surprising request. Not from the headmaster, Will knows the man enjoys watching him touch himself, and watching Anthony do the same, and watching the boys play together. But here - here he had expected something else. Something about sitting up straight, or maintaining stillness while under duress - and this is the most blissful, agonizing, perfect duress.

He hasn’t come in _three days_.

The thought keeps surfacing and Will can feel his vision tremble a little with fuzziness at the corners of his eyes that herald the onset of that elusive pleasure of release. He thinks of Hannibal’s words, thinks of how this will teach him to be beautiful and obedient, the perfect little boy the headmaster will be proud to call his own. He thinks of how this will elevate him above the others even more than he already has been.

He thinks of just how well he wants to do.

Will slips a hand between his legs and curls it around himself, biting his lip hard as he starts to slowly stroke, eyes on the dark ones that watch him, lips parting on a gasp of overwhelmed pleasure as he clenches again and trembles. He touches, as Hannibal told him to. He touches, as he does when he is with Anthony. He touches as he does when he’s alone and overwhelmed by want for a moment just like this.

Hannibal lifts his chin, and smiles a little as Will - whether deliberately or as an instinctive mirroring - does the same.

His little cock appears and vanishes within his fist. Again and again, shining head poking free, only to disappear once more into the tight tunnel of Will’s fingers. Will does not perform - he does not have the experience in sensuality nor worldliness to do so. When he strokes himself, he does so as it naturally comes to him, in the manner in which he learned how to make himself feel good. From the first nocturnal emissions to the first curious fondling, the first time he curled his hand around his cock instead of rubbing it against mattress or pillow. Hannibal can see clearly the path of Will’s discovery in the rhythm of his body, from the way he rests his head back against the couch to the shortening breaths that heave his skinny sides.

Would that Hannibal had been there for those first explorations, as well, but one cannot have everything, can they?

“Rock your hips,” the headmaster suggests. “Steady your wrist and press your body against it, instead. You will feel -”

His words are interrupted by a glorious, high keening from Will as he does so, and the plug pushes against him again.

“Very good,” Hannibal smiles. “What should be your reward, for such hard work during your lesson?”

Will squirms again, one foot coming up as he spreads his legs wider, his free hand dropping to catch just behind his knee to hold himself open. Hannibal thinks of months on, with training this boy, and having him learn obediently everything he is taught. He thinks of how beautiful he will be when he knows how to manipulate that body, when he knows just how stunning a creature he has become.

“Let me come, sir,” Will whimpers, continuing to fuck into the curl of his fingers with slow rocking of his hips. He’s dripping clear against his fingers now. The plug must be pressing hard against his prostate, unyielding glass where it could have been soft silicone.

Hannibal had considered.

He bought the glass plug instead, and is happy he hadn’t let a momentary lapse in judgement tug him to sympathy. When he trains his boys, he trains them properly. Coddling them does little more than make them lazy.

“Tell me why I did not let you come the last three times you were here with me,” Hannibal calmly asks. “Remind me.” He watches Will’s throat work, watches the red lip slip between his teeth again.

“The first night, for education,” Will whispers, shifting to push the plug slightly off center and his breathing goes, for a moment, as his throat clicks in pleasure. “The se-second for endurance,” he breathes. It’s hard, it’s so hard to hold on and he is so close. “Last night for your… your enjoyment, sir, please -”

Given time, given practice, Hannibal will sit at his desk and work as Will strokes himself. A book unread before him, but seeming to hold his attention, Hannibal will listen as the whisper of skin against skin and hitched gasps fills his office in place of music. Coiling pale and serene in his resistance, finding pleasure in denial, this boy will tempt him with little more than parted lips and hooded eyes, as his elder boy does now, for hours at a time.

Extraordinary boys.

“When you touched yourself last,” Hannibal asks, “of what did you think?”

Will aches, a little moan uplifted helpless. “Of you, sir. Of you -”

“Of me.”

“Of you f-fu-... inside me,” Will corrects, swallowing hard as he shakes, as his whole body shakes with the strength it takes not to come during his confession.

“Bigger than what is inside you now.”

“Yes.”

“Moving as I please, not within your control.”

“Y-Yes,” moans Will. “Yes, please, sir -”

“Now,” his headmaster whispers. “And think of me inside you.”

Will comes so hard he wonders how it's possible so much come was in him. It spills sloppy and wet between his fingers as he keeps stroking, imagines, as he'd been told, Hannibal inside him instead of the big plug. Bigger. Hotter. Stronger and shifting still even when Will comes and can't touch anymore, body too sensitive and hands trembling.

It takes several moments for him to catch his breath, to whisper a soft ‘thank you’ to Hannibal, who accepts it with a gracious hum. Will is exhausted, entirely and completely, floppy as a rag doll on the couch. Hannibal watches him a moment more before standing and bringing a box of tissues over to work clean Will’s little messy fingers.

Another night he would have Will lick them clean. Tonight, he is willing to be lenient.

“Bend over for me, William,” he murmurs, and Will whimpers as he shifts to his side and slips one knee beneath himself on the soft leather. His socks have slipped down again, but it is entirely endearing, now, rather than a cause for punishment. The boy will remember, Hannibal is certain. “Arch your back, please, and hold still.”

Will does, as much as he can manage, and Hannibal carefully works the hard little plug free. Will whimpers, whines and sobs until it slips out, and he collapses to the couch and curls up on it, tiny and trembling. His tears, involuntary, slick warm against the leather beneath his cheek, until the smooth material falls away from beneath him.

With strong arms beneath him, Hannibal lifts Will from where he lays and holds him close. Spindly legs and scrawny arms clamber around him; Will buries his nose without hesitation against Hannibal’s throat. Slight little thing, lovely little thing, Hannibal wraps an arm beneath his bottom and the other around his back, fingers in his hair.

It feels like indulgence, but Hannibal allows himself the truth of that. He takes comfort in the justification of positive reinforcement and aftercare. It would be cruel to treat Will coldly after this.

With hushing whispers against Will’s ear, Hannibal cradles him close, and rubs warmth back into his skin. “Remarkable boy,” he sighs, Will’s soft curls tickling his cheek when stirred by his breath. “You did very well. And next time, you will do even better.”

Will nods with a little whimper, and promises he will. He smells of musk and pheromones, potent in his youth and enough to dizzy the headmaster. He smells of promise and potential. And when small fingers spread against Hannibal’s cheeks and satin-soft lips spread against his own, the man can do no more than allow it, and the confused, pleased tangle of sound that rises from Will’s throat.

Kisses are rare with the headmaster. They are allowed and encouraged between Will and Anthony, but Hannibal is not one to give out kisses lightly. Once in in a while, for very good behaviour. And this feels like the biggest reward Will could possibly ask for.

He relishes the warm breath and gentleness. He thinks of his own question, at the beginning, to Anthony, about Hannibal ever being kind. He is never not kind, the prefect had told him, and Will knows it's true. 

He wants to kiss him for a long time, sleepy sweet things, but he finds that his body is shutting down and begging for rest, and with a soft sigh he nuzzles against Hannibal again instead. “May I sleep on the couch while you work?” He asks softly. 

Hannibal indulges them both in another kiss, pressed and held gently, and released with a shadowed smile. “You may,” the headmaster allows. “Upon the couch, or at my feet. I will allow you then to rest your head in my lap.”

Will’s eyes widen, despite his exhaustion, and his heart skips a little faster. He looks between Hannibal's eyes, past the relaxed muscles beneath and the fine little lines that make it look as if he's smiling, despite his lips remaining still. Sucking his bottom lip into his mouth, Will blinks up at him.

"Both?" he ventures, curling his fingers a little firmer against the back of Hannibal's neck.

"As bold and as greedy as Mr. Dimmond," Hannibal notes.

But there is approval in his voice, for daring, for being brave. That is always something that the headmaster rewards, so long as such confidence does not cross into its cousin, presumption. He bends to release Will back to the couch, watching for a moment the curl of his skinny legs as he draws himself up small and bare, with a little sound of pain. Hannibal picks up his switch as he returns to his desk, returning both implements - the plug he would wash later - and locking the drawer in which they are kept. He takes up his letter and pen and a stiff-backed notepad, and returns to sit slowly upon the couch with a creak of leather.

Will wriggles around beside him, like a puppy allowed on the furniture for the first time. He pulls his socks up his legs again, flexes his toes, then shifts to set his head in Hannibal’s lap, making himself comfortable and moaning softly when a heavy hand sets in his hair. It doesn't take him long to doze, then to entirely succumb to sleep, exhausted by his day and the effort put into it. Will’s lips are slightly parted as he breathes, one hand curled on the couch, and the other up against his face.

With little mind at all for his work, rather than committing to the presentation of focus elsewhere, Hannibal listens for the little hitch of breath and soft snuffle against his leg that betrays the boy’s sleep. He snores lightly, as sweet a sound as any other he makes. His legs twitch, muscles strained and tired. Hannibal tucks a curl of hair behind Will’s ear and traces the backs of his fingers along the Will’s jaw and the curve of his neck, down to a bony shoulder and along the back of his arm.

Hannibal will wake him, after a time, and summon Anthony when he is through with supper. Both will tend to their headmaster’s needs, kissing around his cock, delighting even in their youthful competition to be together again. He has chosen well, from among the school’s rabble. He has been fortunate in finding boys worth choosing at all. One has been trained to exceptional servitude, and the other -

The other nuzzles against his leg as he sleeps, seeking closeness even then.

Hannibal will not tell them how much he cherishes them both, their successes and their failures, their skill in submission and their unbridled youthful exuberance. He will not tell them he loves them both, dearly. It would spoil them, and lower the position he takes great pains to maintain in their lessons. But he allows himself to think it for a moment, just now, with Will curled against him sweet and small, and the letter to Will’s father yet unfinished, asking that Will stay over the summer vacation.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And when slender fingers from two extraordinary boys take the place of his own hand, Hannibal relents in near subservience to the two lovely creatures who share his heart._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

“Mr. Dimmond.”

Anthony lifts his eyes but not his head, turning his gaze from the long-lashed boy before him to the man above. The headmaster’s brow lifts, a bare movement, but as Anthony spreads his tongue to return to the matter at hand, his hair is gently snared and he is pulled away from Hannibal’s cock, just far enough that he can’t reach it. Will watches, rosy lips wrapped around the tip and cheeks ruddy.

“You seem distracted today, Mr. Dimmond,” Dr. Lecter says, cool curiosity smoothing his words. “Is something troubling you?”

_“No, sir,” he answers, taking his seat as instructed. He tries not to fidget and so tenses his muscles to perfect stillness instead. “Only that -”_

_“Only that?”_

_“Only that you never ask me to just come in and sit,” he says. “Have I done something wrong?”_

_Truly wrong, Anthony wants to ask, so wrong that he’s not being bared or bent. So wrong that his headmaster is unhappy with him, that perhaps he won’t be allowed to play or take his punishments anymore. Anthony’s lungs won’t fill right, his tension squeezing them empty. He presses his tongue between his lips and watches Hannibal, wary, as the man takes his seat on the other side of the desk._

_“I wish to speak to you without distraction,” Dr. Lecter tells him. “We need to have a conversation.”_

“Sir?” Anthony sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and gives Hannibal his most beautiful, open, obedient expression. His body hums with need, achingly hard already from just being told he is allowed to service the headmaster this way. Hannibal's eyes narrow and Anthony’s heart hammers in his chest.

He had been thinking about Will.

“I admit that young Mr. Graham is mesmerizing when he does this with me." Anthony’s cheeks pinken. “I find myself enamored.”

Will makes a soft sound and his fingers flex against the floor in lieu of stroking himself. He is not allowed. He has not been told to. But he can find stimulation in other ways, and parts his lips just so, tongue curled against the head of their headmaster’s cock. Will lowers his eyes, lifts them again, blinks languid, and Hannibal releases Anthony’s hair with a gentle stroke.

“You are always encouraged to enjoy the other,” Hannibal reminds him.

Anthony leans forward to accept the invitation Will put forth. With their headmaster’s cockhead between their lips, they kiss and slide their tongues against the other, over soft lips and taut skin. He runs a hand through Will’s curls and along his jaw, and when they breathe out, both moan in a harmony of youthful eagerness that tugs the cock between their mouths to even greater stiffness.

_“You’ve done nothing wrong,” responds the headmaster, hands folded on his desk. Anthony watches his fingers lace and suddenly wants to be beneath them, caressed or spanked or fingered or pulled by his hair. “But I have always made it a point to be honest with you, and you with me. You are on track, barring some unfortunate incident, to leave this school two terms from now, and I wish to bring another into my office to be taught as you were, in order to fill the absence you will leave behind. I have found a student who I think would take well to these lessons.”_

_Anthony feels as though all the air has been pushed from his lungs, as though he has been doused with freezing water. Another. Another boy to replace him. There are yet two terms remaining and his headmaster is already seeking another boy, already shifting Anthony to the back of his mind where he will remain, if that, forever._

_“Please,” Anthony breathes. “Please, sir, I’ll do better.”_

_His headmaster tilts his head, a tug of muscle beneath his eyes. “You’ve done nothing wrong,” he repeats. “Nor do I intend to relieve you of your lessons until such time as you are taken from this school. From me.”_

_Anthony shakes his head, sucking his lips into his mouth and releasing them with a tight breath. “I’ll come more often, every day. I’ll spend all night here, please -”_

“Please?”

“Please may I touch him,” Anthony asks, knowing well enough that they’ve not been given permission to touch themselves. Will breathes a laugh, cheeks warm, still shy about this but flattered. Grateful. If Anthony can touch him and he can touch Anthony…

“You may.”

So he does, at first tickling touches against Will’s thighs, smiling when he shifts to spread them, mouth still full of Hannibal’s cock, cheeks flushed pink from the pleasure of it. He is a quick learner, he watches Anthony like a mentor and best friend and partner that they have grown to be in this.

Anthony ducks his head to suck against the base of Hannibal’s cock, eyes barely open when he finally cups his hand against Will’s length and teasingly rubs there. He adjusts his own position just enough to take the headmaster’s balls into his mouth and moan around them. Tandem pleasure, a treat in itself to be able to do this with the man who teaches and adores and punishes them.

Anthony trembles when Will’s smaller hand seeks out against him next, spreading over his chest to tweak a nipple, skimming down his body to stroke his cock as well. Christ he’s lovely. Innocent and little and just so sweet when he chokes on Hannibal as the older man arches his hips to push in deeper.

He is perfect.

_”I can be perfect,” Anthony whispers. “I can be… I can do anything… Han- Headmaster, please, please don’t replace me.”_

_“Mr. Dimmond.”_

_His voice snaps Anthony’s shoulders straight as readily as the lash. They shake as when he takes the cane across his thighs. But he breaks far faster from Dr. Lecter’s displeasure than from any of the implements that he’s come to know._

_“After everything,” Anthony whispers._

_“It is an inevitability that you would leave here. It is a testament to your academic work that you’ve been accepted to such a prestigious university. This is not a punishment.”_

_“I don’t want anyone to take my place!” Anthony shouts, hands curled to fists against his legs._

_The headmaster’s head tilts, just so._

_As quickly as the anger had come, shock follows. Anthony’s eyes so wide the whites rim the pale blue, he moves from the chair and makes his way to the desk, around it, and kneels next to the headmaster’s chair, pressing his forehead to his thigh._

_“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he breathes. His heart beats too quickly, words he should never say choking him no matter how hard he tries to swallow. He can feel the burn behind his eyes that suggest the familiar tang of tears, but these hurt more, these are sharper than the things that seep from between closed lids when he is seeing white from pain. These are pain._

_“Is it only because I’m going?” he whispers. “Is it only because I have to go away? Would you have kept me had I not needed to? Would you have - would you have sought out another if - if -”_

“Breathe,” Hannibal reminds him, laying a hand to his hair. Anthony lets his headmaster’s balls fall spit-soaked from his lips and takes a breath, another, before seeking out Will’s mouth again instead. They kiss around the shaft, against the head, each other only with a clumsy shove of their lips together and grins so wide their reddened mouths can hardly meet. Hannibal shifts further back upon the couch, an allowance that both understand, as before him his two students clamber against each other, Anthony atop, pressing Will back against the carpet.

Hannibal strokes himself, content to watch them play, always pleased to see it so. They give up on trying to touch the other’s cock, bodies too enmeshed, and simply rub instead. Pinkened cocks peek between their bellies as Will spreads his legs, then snares them hard against Anthony’s hips. Their kiss rises to a practiced rhythm, experienced in this enough to know when the other will turn their head, how to move with them, when to part their lips and taste the other’s tongue. Linen limbs wrap against the other, Will’s arms around Anthony’s neck, Anthony’s hands in his hair, and the air filled with the little whimpers of their pleasure with each other and to the added benefit of the man who watches them both.

Moments like these make Anthony love Will more and more, a puppy who sometimes manages to bare his teeth and nip. He is playful and strong and malleable for this. He takes every punishment as though it is worship upon his skin. He begs for more. He begs to stop. He takes everything he is given, trusting entirely.

Anthony pulls back from the kiss to nuzzle Will instead, adoring and claiming, never supposing he could have the boy as Hannibal does, but taking him under his wing, watching and helping and loving him as he grows into himself. He is his boy as much as Will is Hannibal’s. As much as he will be, when Anthony leaves for university. He lifts his eyes to Hannibal as he presses a tender kiss to Will’s temple, turning the smaller boy’s face around to look at Hannibal too.

_“Beautiful,” Hannibal whispers. “Proud. Stubborn.”_

_Anthony’s breath hitches and he cries. His shame and his guilt and his anger aren’t enough to stop it; nothing could when the idea of not being here and not being his headmaster’s own and only is suddenly so close. Gentle touches caress his hair, until Hannibal reaches to tuck a finger beneath his chin, and thumb away the wetness on his ruddy cheeks._

_Hannibal’s chair creaks as he turns and bends, hands beneath Anthony’s arms to pull the boy into his lap. All the lessons on carriage and propriety and restraining one’s emotions wash away in a rush of tears. Anthony wraps his arms around Hannibal’s neck, and sobs harder when his headmaster holds him in return._

_“Mr. Dimmond,” he says, “would that I could stop time and keep you here, just as you are, forever.”_

_“I could stay,” Anthony sobs quietly. “I could find a way to - I could do badly in my exams, be held back -”_

_“You will do no such thing,” Hannibal scolds him, carding his fingers through Anthony’s hair, feeling how hot the skin of his scalp is against his hand, fevered in his panic. “You have learned, in your lessons and in mine, you have bettered yourself, and you have earned your place in the university. You will go, and you will do well, and you will continue your lessons.”_

_“How can I without you?”_

_Hannibal hums, brings his hand to Anthony’s chin once more to lift his face and see him. Anthony’s cheeks are blotchy with tears, eyes rimmed red and lips pressed into a pout of such beautiful childishness. Hannibal has a deep affection for him, deeper than he had thought he could have for a boy he was training, but there it is. He thinks of the first time he had properly penetrated the boy, watched him squirm and gasp and shift, how good he had felt, how sweet his little pleas and his thank you was at the end._

_He blinks, and Anthony blinks back, conditioned to repeat and do as he’s told, conditioned to trust._

_“Yes, sir,” he breathes._

Though Anthony answers the instruction, both boys obey. Skinny bodies slink onto the couch on either side of their headmaster - theirs to share and be shared with, in every way. Hannibal’s wrist curls, fingers firm around his cock as they kiss each other closer to him, hands against his thighs. The shared smiles lifting their eyes, teasing out their kiss, are entirely genuine. He has little doubt that they find as much worth in their own relationship as in the lessons they take with him.

Hannibal could not have hoped for more.

Anthony parts their lips with an aching sound, wiping away the thread of spit that joins them with the back of his hand. He turns to Hannibal then and kisses his cheek, eyes darting to Will who breaks from his own reverence to lean closer too, a hand against Hannibal’s chest. They flutter soft little kisses against his cheeks and despite his resolute control, their headmaster hums a low and genuine pleasure when their lips meet again, pressed to his own at the same time.

And when slender fingers from two extraordinary boys take the place of his own hand, Hannibal relents in near subservience to the two lovely creatures who share his heart.

They tease him beautifully, Anthony skilled and practiced, knowing just how to twist his wrist or when to tighten his hold, and Will, his opposite, with his sweet lack of experience and eagerness to learn. The juxtaposition is maddening. Anthony leans close to Will and whispers something, conspiratorial and playful, and as he continues to stroke Hannibal, slips to straddle one of his thighs as Will straddles the other. The younger boy bends to press his lips to Hannibal’s chest, kissing his way over the soft warm hair to a nipple that he immediately takes between his lips.

With a grin, Anthony takes the other, tongue lapping against it in teasing circles, playful flicks, and then long, deliberate licks.

_”Clever boy,” Hannibal purrs, stroking Anthony’s hair as he sniffs and dries his tears and attempts a smile. “Clever, sweet boy, I would never replace you, not if circumstances were different.”_

_Anthony nods, biting his lip, accepting with a gentle tremble the hands in his hair as he’s stroked, touched softly and adored. He needs this, he needs this gentleness as he so often needs the sharp lashes of the cane or the heavy strikes of Hannibal’s hand. He brings up his own hands to grasp Hannibal’s and turns his face into his palm._

_“Can you tell me about him?” he asks._

_Hannibal strokes his thumb against Anthony’s cheek, cupping his face as Anthony rubs against his gentle grasp. “He does not yet, I think, recognize his nature - certainly not with the quickness that you did. But you are much the same, in the strictness to which you respond, and in the manner of your responses. He is shyer than you, but just as prone to deliberate misbehavior,” he says, smiling a little when Anthony grins, sheepish, against his palm. “Dark curly hair. Blue eyes.”_

_“Is he clever, too?”_

_Hannibal turns his hand enough to thumb softly over Anthony’s lips, drawing a breath as they part against the pad of his finger. “Too much for his own good.”_

_Anthony turns, gracefully bringing his leg around to straddle his headmaster’s lap. But he doesn’t rub against him or seek for more. He curls his arms against his chest and leans into Hannibal’s arms again, to allow himself the feeling of being small again._

_“What is his name?”_

_“Will Graham.”_

Will lifts his eyes, beautiful, and noses against Hannibal’s neck when the man sets a hand to the back of his head to bring him closer. Anthony allows them their moment, in truth feeling his heart flutter in his chest to see them so gently and intimately together. There is no longer that tug of pain. They kiss, and Anthony continues to tease against Hannibal, uses his free hand to stroke down Will’s back to cup his ass and squeeze.

Will keens, a gentle thing, and when Hannibal draws him nearer still to kiss again, Anthony slips his fingers against Will’s hole and rubs. The younger boy’s voice cracks a little when he moans against Hannibal’s mouth. Hannibal takes in the pleasure that softens and tenses his features in equal measure. He tastes his whimper with another kiss.

“Does Anthony play with you like this often?”

With a sheepish grin and another little noise, Will pushes back against Anthony’s finger, their eyes meeting. They speak without speaking, their closeness an intimate familiarity with the other. Will laughs, fingers fluttering against Hannibal’s cock, and nods.

“Both of us do,” he confesses, “with the other.”

Their headmaster’s eyes crinkle in the corners, and he turns to Anthony then, an arm across Will’s back, and the other hand bringing the older boy close. They rest their foreheads together, noses brushing, and Hannibal takes the kiss that Anthony yields to him entirely.

“I never put more than one inside him,” Anthony purrs, repeating the instructions given to him months before. “Never anything but a finger.”

Will trembles against Hannibal in delight and seeks back against Anthony’s hand for more friction. He has been spread much wider by Hannibal before, his fingers and the toys he buys Will, but there is something deeply innocent, utterly sweet about being fingered by his friend. Hannibal’s eyes narrow, watching Anthony carefully, and with a smile the boy starts to press into Will, laughing when he spreads his legs so eagerly.

Hannibal sets his hand to Will’s little cock and strokes him, watching the flush and shiver rock his little body up and back, against them both, caught between them.

Anthony is not left forgotten, Hannibal letting his other hand slip down to press between his cheeks too, two fingers, for his prefect, the boy leaning in to kiss against Hannibal as Will leans in to kiss against him. His hands continue to stroke the headmaster, slipping down occasionally to tug his balls or press his fingers just behind them.

They are a mess of limbs and sweat and soft sweet sighs, and Hannibal drops his head back to allow the sensations to overwhelm him.

_Tender kitten nuzzles and soft sighs, stilled only when another kiss is touched to his cheek, his neck, again and again. Hannibal keeps his arms around Anthony and rubs his back, neither directing him as he might during a lesson, nor pressing for more. Anthony would accept correction, he would accept more, but he’s grateful for the closeness that begins to ease the worry still taut within._

_“Tell me,” his headmaster murmurs against his hair as Anthony coils closer still._

_“Will I see you less?” Anthony asks, in as unwavering a whisper as he can manage._

_“No, Mr. Dimmond.”_

_“Will all our time together be with him?”_

_“No, Mr. Dimmond,” Hannibal says. “We will have our own time, just as we do now.”_

_“Will you -”_

_He can’t make himself ask that, he doesn’t want to know the answer. Anthony shivers beneath Hannibal’s hands as they stroke his back, and he buries his nose against his neck. It took so long, it took so much work - terms and terms of lessons and bruises and welts and corporal punishment - to earn his headmaster’s own body inside his. It took perfection and Anthony achieved it, and his jaw aches with the want to cry again at the thought of someone else having that, too._

_“That is ours,” Hannibal answers. “Only ours, while you are here.”_

_Anthony shivers and makes a sound, helpless and thankful at once, and presses closer, arching his back as Hannibal lays heavy arms against the base of his back. He is special. He is wanted. He is adored. This is not a punishment, he has not been bad. This is merely an attempt to turn terrible circumstances into something bearable for them both._

_“I expect you to be the perfect mentor for him,” Hannibal murmurs, and Anthony shivers in genuine delight at the thought._

_“Yes, sir.”_

_“Teach and guide him, when I haven’t the time.”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

_“Protect him,” Hannibal adds, and Anthony looks up, brows furrowed. “He will look up to you. Do not lead him astray.”_

_Anthony sucks his lips between his teeth and makes himself think through the words again. Mentor and teach and guide. Protect and lead. As Hannibal did for him, so long ago now, so Anthony will help to shape the boy who will keep his headmaster company while Anthony is away. Anthony knows what is expected of him, he knows Dr. Lecter’s rules and requirements, preferences and unspoken desires better than his own. He can - he will - help to convey them, and he will be the consort and companion that he never had during those years. Someone to teach this Will Graham how to ice his bruises. He’ll show him how to bend. He’ll whisper secrets to him and be his friend._

_He can._

_He will._

_Anthony nods, and smiles when a kiss is held to his temple in nothing less than gratitude from the man whom he admires most in the world. A breath finally fills his chest and sighs out softly, as a mischievous look narrows Anthony’s eyes._

_“And if I don’t think he’s capable?”_

_Hannibal matches his look, with the hint of a smile shadowed across his features._

_“I trust that you will help me to ensure that he is.”_

“Please -”

Will has proven himself very capable.

“Please let - let me do more -”

He has proven himself amenable to learning, to understanding. Slowly his requests become less and less for himself, and more about what he can do for Hannibal or Anthony. Slowly, his endurance grows to take more, to cry harder, to bend and arch and present even when his entire being is shaking in agony. He is a beautiful and a capable boy.

He is worthy.

Will whimpers and turns his face against Anthony’s, accepting his kiss as Anthony teases a second finger against him but doesn’t push it in. Will is losing himself to his pleasure, leaking heavy thick drops against Hannibal’s lap as he squirms in it.

Hannibal watches them both, in equal measure, tilting his head into the little kisses that come his way, nuzzling them towards each other. He sighs against Will’s hair and hums when Anthony kisses his neck. Both boys rub against him, their cocks pressing rigid heat against his thighs, both overwhelmed and near to breaking.

“Mr. Graham,” Hannibal purrs. “Please touch Mr. Dimmond, as he is touching you.”

With a breath and a flicker of his jaw, to focus past his own quickening heart and dizzied thoughts, their headmaster leans back against the couch to watch them, and takes both their cocks in his hands, thumbing across leaking tips and tugging full shafts.

“You will each use two fingers, and when you have each done so, you will make the other come. Do you understand, Mr. Dimmond?”

“Sir,” Anthony whispers, grinning.

“Do you understand, Mr. Graham?”

Will whimpers and nods, getting better but not yet as good as Anthony at keeping his pleasure under control. Sometimes he comes too soon, still. He learns quickly not to again.

“Yes, sir,” he breathes, moving his hand to where Hannibal’s was before. Anthony is still stretched, comfortably, and takes the slim fingers with a groan of pleasure, rubbing his own fingers against Will over and over before pushing gently in. Will is tight, though he is now on constant training with the plug when he goes to visit Hannibal. Anthony wagers he will soon have permission to supervise that training in their - now - shared room in the dorm when Hannibal is busy. He is beautiful and little and learning.

And he takes two fingers with a moan that he presses to Hannibal’s neck.

Hannibal works them both in steady tugs as they curl and stretch their fingers inside each other. Will pants against Hannibal’s skin, beautiful sounds of sweet alarm at the pleasure that shakes him. Anthony sates himself against Hannibal’s mouth, draping kisses against the corner of his lips. Neither need words when their breath and bodies express so much. Neither need do anything but be as they are, innately, clever and obedient and lovely.

Hannibal’s fingers stroke smooth against them both, slicked with precome, so hard - and for so long now - that they’re hot to the touch. They begin to press their fingers firmer, rubbing, circling, and Hannibal tilts a kiss to Will’s temple.

It is to no one’s surprise that Will comes first, moaning explosive as his orgasm ribbons free in streaks of white.

It is an unexpected delight that Anthony’s seed stripes Hannibal’s other leg only an instant later, a curse begun and held upon his hitched gasps.

Attuned to the other, attuned to Hannibal, both boys nearly collapse from their pleasure, yet neither stop touching him, neither stop nuzzling close and whispering sweet nothings and stroking, teasing, drawing short nails up and down Hannibal’s sensitive skin.

Again and again, like puppies at play, until Hannibal allows his breathing to shallow, his eyes to slowly close and his body to respond. Stroke by stroke he pulls more and more taut, hotter, closer, and then he, too, comes from their gentle and deliberate ministrations. Beautiful boys. Beautiful, obedient things.

They kiss each other in delight before turning to press their gratitude and pleasure to Hannibal’s lips next.

They dampen their thighs against his own as they press close to him and he sighs between their mouths. They dampen their chests and bellies from his release, shot against his twitching stomach and across the thick hair on his chest. He kisses Will, grasping him with slick fingers in his curls. He kisses Anthony, sticky palm framing his cheek.

Again and again, they meeting the other’s mouth in a clumsy smush of lips together and little laughs, they meeting Hannibal in turn and together. He wraps his arms around their waists and breathes out long when his students - his capable, remarkable students - rest their heads against his shoulders.

Their eyes meet, Anthony’s narrowed in relief and delight, and Will’s half-closed in drowsy bliss. A beat passes, and together they tell their headmaster _thank you_ , before grinning wide and easing to snorted little laughs. Hannibal hums and lets his eyes slip closed.

“Thank you,” he tells them, as all three catch their breath again together. “Both of you.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hannibal’s wineglass clicks to the counter and he bends suddenly. Grasping Will by the thighs, he lifts the lad’s slender form against him. Skinny legs tighten around his waist, but Will holds fast to his lapels. Hannibal sighs against his mouth, rubbing their lips softly together._
> 
> _“Tell me,” he says, “what you wish to learn, Mr. Graham.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

Anthony wrote from Spain, claiming it to be incredibly dull even though he had been there only three days. One of the few young men granted permission to leave for vacation a week before the school closed for the summer, he reluctantly left both Hannibal and Will to travel home, and then with his family onwards to Spain. Though Anthony’s letter laments that he cannot spend the first month of summer with Will at school, Will has never been happier to get a letter.

No other friends of his have written to him before, as none of them had ever had the means to travel abroad to warrant it. And though Will is not one to adore summer vacation himself, this year he wakes incredibly early on the first day of it and squirms in bed.

This year, he has been invited to stay, not been forced to, at the school. Though some boys spend their vacations here, they find their time taken up with travel by train or cycling, swimming in the rivers that snake through the school or, inevitably, gaining an invitation to go elsewhere.

Will doesn’t want to go elsewhere. Will wants to go exactly where he has been invited.

 _Join me for dinner_ , the note said, slipped under his door with Anthony’s letter the night before. _Bring an overnight bag with your belongings, you will spend the summer with me._

Will stuffs all his clothing into his bag at once, and a few uniforms just in case. It’s only when he’s trying to squeeze in a second pair of shoes that he is horrified at himself. He can hear the headmaster’s purr against his ear - _restrain your enthusiasm, lest it become carelessness._ Dr. Lecter would be very displeased if Will arrived with a bag filled to bursting with clothes like this, more displeased still by the wrinkles they’d carry when he put them on.

He gives very serious thought to leaving them as they are, just for that reason. Will's sure he’d catch a thrashing for it. Maybe laid across the headmaster’s knees with his bottom in the air. Maybe asked to bend over a chair and hold its seat while the headmaster leaves bright red stripes burning over his backside from the switch. Will’s cock twitches in his underpants and he reaches down to squeeze it still again.

It doesn’t help much, so he decides to fold all his things neatly instead, and wait for the hotness building in his belly to pass.

He packs enough for just over a week, confident there will be chances to do his laundry and save himself another trip to his room for more things. He wonders if Hannibal expects him to wear his uniform or if he should dress in his home-clothes. The thought tugs at him and Will decides to risk it. Soft boxer briefs and black shorts - shorter than the school’s regulation uniform - a pair of white socks and comfortable ankle boots. A grey button-up on top, no tie. Will considers taking some books - perhaps the little radio he has in his drawer for when he wants to find new and unusual stations at night when he can’t sleep - but Will thinks better of it.

He closes the door to his room and heads down the silent corridor, smiling as he hears his boots click against the tile.

He takes a late breakfast in the kitchen, a few of the boys there with him, nodding in acknowledgement for what they think is a terrible fate for the summer. Will hardly thinks the same, but he dutifully plays his part, sighing and drawing patterns in the condensed water from the edge of his glass. When the boys leave, so does Will. He goes to the library. He finds a book and buries himself in it, trying to make time go faster.

It crawls.

But so does the sun across the floor, and by the time Will has curled up in his corner, content to take a warm afternoon nap, the sun cuts against his lids and he sits up again.

The clock reads five in the evening. With an embarrassing sound of sheer delight, Will slips the book to its shelf again and runs from the library, towards the first place he encountered the headmaster properly. Down the wide marble stairs from the library and straight along the hall. Past empty classrooms, his bag hitting against his leg, he takes a sharp right and continues on. Further and further out from the center of the school, past the dormitories. Up another set of stairs and to the very farthest upstairs corner of the school.

His heart beats hard and his lungs burn. He uses his sleeve to wipe the sweat off his brow and straightens his shirt with his hands, careful not to let them stray too low on his tummy. He’s already so excited, he can barely breathe, and it has little to do with charging full-bore across the school.

There is a soft crackle of music from behind the enormous wooden door. Will can smell the lilacs that grow along that side of the old brick building, carried in through an open window on a warm wind. He bites his bottom lip and knocks.

What will he tell his father, about why he’s not coming home for summer?

Staying to work on his studies, underneath the headmaster’s tutelage. The lie is so easy and the thought feels like a blow to the stomach, clenching his muscles in the best sort of agony.

“Come in.”

Will could moan right there in the hallway.

He restrains himself, he can be good. He will be good. He reaches forward and sets a hand to the door handle before turning it and stepping in. The headmaster’s rooms are beautifully appointed. Dark wood and heavy drapes, side tables with fresh flowers and heavy tomes. One large window looks out over the fields beyond, belonging to the school but rarely used for sports or track, maintained and lovely and green; a beautiful backdrop.

The headmaster himself is in one of his elegant suits, setting some plates to the small round table before the window. He looks up at Will and tilts his head and Will presses his thighs together in blissful anticipation.

“Good evening, sir,” he murmurs.

Hannibal tilts his head a little more, and Will draws a deep breath.

“Good evening, headmaster,” he says again, more clearly. Enunciated.

He practices sometimes at night, in his room. Speaking his words crisply and clearly, he reviews his day’s lessons and adjusts his pronunciation to tighten the working-class looseness from his words. He imagines saying them around Hannibal’s cock, stiff and thick and fat between his lips, dripping on his tongue.

Hannibal’s smile narrows his eyes, reaching nowhere else, but felt down to the pit of Will’s stomach. The headmaster continues setting the table, shining silverware laid against a delicate cream cloth that flutters in the gentle late-evening breeze. “Good evening, William. You may set your bag down in the bedroom. I’m afraid that there’s only one bed here, but you’ll have your own room once we make our way to my home.”

Will swallows and nods, bending to work off his boots and leave them by the door before hoisting his bag up higher against his shoulder and making his way past the headmaster to deeper within the rooms. It is a small place to live, but comfortable enough to sustain the headmaster throughout the terms the school is active.

Behind the divide that keeps the bedroom area away from the rest of the space, Will sees the perfectly made bed, sheets of heavy silk, lamps on either side of the bed for whoever might share it with the headmaster. Will swallows again and tries not to think of who had been in that bed before. He knows Anthony would have, and that thought snares his stomach not in anger but in desire to have been there, to have seen. He will share this bed with the headmaster this evening, and that tightens Will’s throat in the best possible way. He sets his bag down out of the way and rubs his palms up and down his shorts before returning to stand beside the headmaster, hands behind his back and feet shoulder-width apart.

He doesn’t know how else to act, but this pleases Hannibal enough that he steps nearer and strokes a hand through Will’s hair.

“Dear boy,” the headmaster praises him. “Settle. I will have you as a guest tonight. This is not a lesson, but a chance to speak and share a meal before our summer together.” Hannibal watches the disappointment shadow Will’s features. He allows it to linger as Will licks his bottom lip and his arms tighten, fingers folding harder together. Struggling for the words, for the right response, Hannibal relishes in his boy’s internal strife and only relents when Will draws a breath to speak. “Later, perhaps, the conversation may move to more,” he says, tugging Will’s hair with a fond shake as the boy nearly wilts with relief. Hannibal releases him and motions towards the table, but with hardly the exacting expectations to which Will has become accustomed.

Will squints as Hannibal continues on to the small kitchenette. It seems like a test. Rarely has Will been given such absolute freedom - never, in fact, that he can recall. He finds immediately that he doesn’t care for it, struggle as he might at times to obey, perform, and please the headmaster. That rebellion - the same one that drove him to smoke directly in front of Dr. Lecter - has now become another means to get what Will wants.

He chooses not to go to the table, but to drop slouching into the couch instead.

Hannibal blinks, once, and continues his work. “I wrote to your father, on your behalf. I praised your progress in the last year, and your attentive study. I also described a particular tendency towards misbehavior when left to your own devices, and expressed my concern that a summer left unbound,” he says, and Will’s cheeks heat when he does, “would do more harm than good.”

Will doesn’t ask what his father’s response was; he’s here, it’s answer enough.

“He agreed,” Hannibal continues, as he takes something from the stove and stirs with a wooden spoon. Will wonders if it’s the same spoon he had once felt bruise his thighs, and the thought is delightful. “And suggested that you remain at school over the summer while your behavior is corrected, and you learn some discipline within the freedoms you’re allowed.”

Will squirms on the couch and works one foot beneath himself. He rests his weight against the arm of the couch and regards the headmaster as he makes his way to the table again and ladles something into the plates for them both. It smells divine, much richer than anything fed them at the school, though the place hardly starves them. It hits Will, suddenly, that this is real now, that he will get to spend the summer with the headmaster, helping him cook, reading, enjoying being somewhere far away from school and home with a man he wants to please above all others.

This is real.

“Do you think me a fast learner, sir?” Will asks, coy.

Hannibal hums, stirring with a subtle twist in his wrist that Will watches closely.

“I think you are stubborn, and willful,” he says. “But when the mood moves you to behave and commit your attention entirely, yes. I think you learn quickly. More important, perhaps, is that you learn fully. Rarely have I had to teach you a lesson more than once, barring those instances in which I felt a point important enough to repeat again.”

“Do you think me clever?” Will asks, eyes narrowed in delight to see his headmaster raise his gaze in mild surprise from where he brings their dinner to the table.

“I believe you to be,” he says, without removing his attention from Will. “But hardly so much as you consider yourself to be.”

“And charming?”

“Less so, by the moment,” the headmaster responds, brow twitching upward in a gentle challenge. “I wish to enjoy your company as a guest, Mr. Graham. I will ask that you behave with all the expectations that role entails.”

Will ducks his head but he feels himself smile. He has wondered, often, at how softly Anthony and Hannibal regarded each other. Even in the midst of the cruelest teasing towards coming, or a harsh caning, there was always something there that was so intimate, so understanding, that Will often felt his stomach coil in want of it for himself.

Here, he can feel the start of it. The power in the headmaster is unmistakable, Will can’t and won’t ever argue it. But there is also the consideration of a new door being opened, for Will to see what he thinks of this potential and this offering. He’s nervous, he realizes, because he has no idea how to respond to the headmaster in any way but his submissive, good little boy.

He pushes from the couch and walks towards the table, setting his hands against the back of the chair.

“It looks delicious,” he tries, both as an apology and an entirely true observation. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a hot cooked dinner somewhere outside of the mess hall. Thank you.”

The headmaster inclines his head, not in expectation but in appreciation. He lifts the cover from the tray laid in center of the table and Will breathes in deep from the heat that rises in thick spools of grey. Cuts of meat, browned with lines criss-crossed over the crispy skin. A dish of green sauce set beside, and a rocket salad of very tiny leaves, glistening and speckled with bits of salt and pepper.

“What is it?” Will asks, pulling out his seat but pausing the moment that Hannibal’s attention falls on his hands, curved against the back of the chair.

“Sixth-year students who couldn’t pass their exams,” Hannibal says. Will draws a breath, eyes wide. He holds it. His heart beats a little faster and his brow knits, but when the headmaster cracks a smile, Will laughs brightly. “Pheasant breast,” he says after absorbing the ribald pleasure in Will’s delight. “Spatchcocked over an open flame. Drizzled with an herbed dressing, its components gathered from the garden just outside, and a summer salad of cutting greens.”

“You mean,” Will begins, before catching himself. He draws back his remark but Hannibal watches as the realization brightens - or darkens, depending on one’s personal proclivities - his features. In the summer sun, already Will’s cheeks have pinkened and begun to turn towards a russet warmth. He has freckles, spotted just beneath his eyes.

Beautiful boy.

“Yes,” Hannibal finally says. “You’ve seen the pheasants. I assure you, those remaining will hardly miss their compatriots, and we will make their sacrifice worthwhile.”

Will swallows and casts his eyes down once more. The meal is exquisitely presented, and Will’s mouth waters wanting to try it. He settles into his seat and lifts his eyes to the headmaster, watching him do the same. Hannibal pours himself some wine, does not offer Will any. Will wonders if he could convince him, later, to feed it to him from his own lips.

After dinner.

Perhaps the next day, or the next.

Will takes up his cutlery only as Hannibal does, and digs hungrily into his meal. He realizes he hasn’t eaten since that morning, but the distraction and anticipation of the night had kept his stomach turning in the most amazing way. Even now as he sits, straight-backed and well-mannered, he can feel that heat and tension in his belly.

“Where do you live over the summer?” Will asks after a while, cheeks hot with having interrupted the quiet and the clicking of cutlery as they eat. “I assumed you would stay here.”

The headmaster smiles with his eyes and nods a little. “At times, off and on, I do. I enjoy being here, especially in the summer months when it’s so still that the cicadas can be heard from the woods. It is a very different place than during the year, when that hum is replaced by the buzz of boys in the hallways.”

Will smiles a little in return, eating as Hannibal continues.

“I reside several villages away, when I’m not here. Near enough that I can return on evenings that I wish to sleep there instead, far enough that I am able to ease away thoughts of work when I choose to do so.” He spears a portion of pheasant, leaking sweet juices onto the plate. “And you?”

“Hull,” Will says, swallowing down a mouthful of salad to do so. It sticks in his throat a bit, peppery and sharp.

“I know,” Hannibal coaxes him gently. “Tell me more, if you would. I’ve never been.”

“Um,” he manages, before buying time by lifting his napkin to his lips and gently daubing the corners. “It’s fine. It’s like most places, I think. There’s a lot of construction, always. The water’s very brown sometimes. I like the gardens, though. My dad took me once and we’d visit in school when I was little.”

The headmaster’s brow raises, just enough to be noticed, and Hannibal knows that Will does. Sweet boy. Hannibal can all but feel in his own skin the vibration of Will’s nerves, trying valiantly to appear as an adult. He’s doing admirably, for a first dinner together, complimentary and capable of maintaining conversation with only a little coaxing. Polite and well-mannered.

He will do better with time.

“I didn’t know that you had an inclination towards greenery,” Hannibal says. “Perhaps you might help me tend my own garden over the summer months.”

Will’s cheeks burn but his eyes widen in delight. He has never been an avid gardener, but he could spend hours amidst greenery and feel entirely contented.

“If you would teach me,” Will says at last, smiling a little wider. “I would love to learn. I haven’t any experience with gardening. We didn’t have one at home to tend, and beyond the few lessons we had in biology…” He shifts a little, fearing he’s talking too much, too loudly, too awkwardly. “I enjoy trees. There’s something beautiful about how stoic and still they are.”

Hannibal warms from the boy’s words. In truth, though he endeavored to not present it as such, this dinner before their departure is intended to act as a gauge for where Will is with their lessons together. A boy who enjoys the gentle torments of subordination, who finds worth and stimulation in them, is worthwhile in itself. A boy who strives to be greater than only that - who wants greater things, as intensely as Hannibal himself - is worth even more. But a boy with interest in learning, in conversation, in connection beyond the flick of a switch against his backside or a spatter of semen against his belly, is exceedingly rare.

Hannibal considered Anthony Dimmond to be a once-in-a-lifetime find. Entirely capable and desirous of being everything and anything to Hannibal, entirely charming in every imaginable way. William Graham shows all the same hallmarks of an excellent companion. Formed and shaped from the clay, with just enough resilience and cleverness to prove a delightful challenge to the headmaster.

Hannibal will ache for Anthony in his absence. He has little lingering doubt that Will’s attention will work wonders to ease that pining.

And both, together…

The headmaster draws up straighter in his chair and stands. He offers out a hand for Will’s plate, but watches in wonder as Will stands, too, and takes his plate and Hannibal’s both to carry towards the kitchenette.

“Perhaps walks in the woods,” Hannibal suggests. “We might learn more about the trees you so admire. Seek for more pheasants with which to share our company,” he adds, with amusement.

The groundskeeper will certainly take note of their absence on her return from summer vacation. There will be others, but these two in particular were enormously productive and woefully trusting. It made it altogether too easy when Hannibal took a quiver of arrows and a compound bow from the archery team’s storeroom and struck out after them.

Will’s grin is blinding. He told himself all day that it would be enough to simply see the headmaster every day over summer, it would be enough to go to bed hard and aching and needy and knowing he had done well. But it never crossed his mind just how much he genuinely wanted to spend time with Hannibal, doing nothing at all but entirely normal things.

“Are there woods near your home?” he asks, setting the plates into the sink and shoving up his sleeves to do the dishes. Hannibal watches him.

“There are,” he says. “Deep and quiet and well worth exploring. Perhaps we might take a picnic, one day.”

“I would love that,” Will admits, reaching for the liquid soap to wash the dishes with. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been out in the woods. I spent most of my youth near the water.”

Hannibal dutifully brings the dishes to the sink, one by one. “There are docks in Hull,” Hannibal says, but it’s tilted as a question, encouragement for Will to tell him more.

“Yes,” he says, scrubbing diligently. “My dad worked there for a lot of - for many years,” he corrects readily, lifting his eyes to Hannibal who rewards him with a gentle smile.

“And now?”

“He’s the caretaker of a school there.”

Hannibal brings the last dish over from the table, content to allow Will to work without interceding. It would be an insult to presume him incapable, and in truth, the headmaster is pleased to see his gentle eagerness to work and prove himself worthy, even in such a small way. His wineglass is the last piece to need washing, and half-full with his second pour, it remains in his hand.

“You’re very proud of him,” Hannibal notes.

“He’s much happier than he was before,” Will says. “I thought I would work with him at the docks, but I’m glad I might not have to, now. I’m glad he doesn’t have to, now.”

Watching him with his sleeves up to his elbows, focused so intently that his glasses slip down his nose, Hannibal recalls as he sips his wine that Will is here on scholarship. A bright boy from what the posh would consider ‘unfortunate’ circumstances, he seemed worthy to bring into the care of the school. His mother passed at a young age. His father working-class, but ardent that his son do better than he felt he had. They were meeting quotas, when they took him in. He has proved an exemplary student with a keen interest in bettering himself. That, Hannibal knows intimately, and it pleases him enormously to think of how the boy might further improve himself beneath Hannibal’s careful attention.

His cock stirs and he ignores it entirely for now, taking another sip of wine.

“We’ll leave midday, tomorrow,” Hannibal tells him. “Take the morning to rest, and enjoy a lazy breakfast together. There is a train that leaves just after lunch, and we should arrive in time to settle and share supper together.”

Will shoves his glasses up his nose with the back of his wrist and turns a wide smile to Hannibal.

“Alright,” he says. The dishes are almost done, all rinsed and set to drip-dry by the sink since Will has no idea where to look for a towel or where to set the dishes away when he’s done drying them. He flicks his fingers into the sink when he turns off the tap and accepts, with a shy smile, the cloth handed to him to dry his fingers. “Thank you,” he adds, unsure why but knowing he should.

He is being offered and given something incredible, experiences and new understandings. It makes Will blush that the headmaster thinks him worthy of this.

He turns to Hannibal once he has folded the towel away and bites his lip, unsure of what to do next, now that dinner is behind them, delicious and filling as it was. Will doesn’t deny that he wants to be touched, that he wants to be kissed and stroked and held close, but there is a part of him that is grateful that he wasn’t invited here only for this, that he is invited to Hannibal’s home not only to be fucked and whipped, but to be enjoyed in other ways too.

That hardly stops the hammering of his heart when Hannibal circles the small counter separating kitchen from the main room of his little flat. It hardly stops the twist that snares taut his stomach when Hannibal sets his fingers beneath Will’s chin and lifts it.

And it doesn’t stop at all the soft sound he makes as his lips part beneath his headmaster’s own, to allow his wine-sweet tongue to stroke once across his own.

Will grips the counter to keep himself steady, eyes closing as their kiss twines slowly together. He feels less like a naughty student in need of reprimand, and like the adult he imagines himself to be. Hannibal hums against the spread of Will’s lips, and Will pushes gently to his toes to press closer. He smiles when Hannibal leans away, the headmaster drawing his nose against Will’s sun-warmed and freckled cheek to breathe in the sweetness of his youth. More intoxicating than any wine. More delicious than any debauchery, for the earnestness in all he does.

“Thank you,” Hannibal says, “for attending the dishes.”

Will feels himself blush darker and nods. He doesn’t know what to say. He feels giddy and excited and little in the best possible way. He wants Hannibal to enjoy him as he does Anthony, he wants to be able to not only bend for him but climb into his lap and sit and talk with him, about anything the headmaster wishes.

He wonders how much, truly, he would need to practice for that. He is too scared to initiate anything, he hasn’t Anthony’s confidence. But he wants to, his entire body aches to do something first.

He reaches out to take Hannibal’s lapels between his fingers, just gently, never enough to crumple them, and settles to his heels again, small but close, smiling up at the man he so admires and wants in every conceivable way.

“Tell me what we will do, when we get to your home?” Will prompts quietly. “Tell me the books we will read and the things you will teach me.”

To his amazement, his headmaster remains bent slightly at the waist, staying where he is held by Will’s soft grip on his lapels. Anthony said, once, very late at night, that once in a while he wondered where the power really lay between them. Will sees it - feels it, electric - now for the first time, holding this powerful man steady above him.

“Together,” Hannibal says, “we will share great literature of the world. Books you’d not be assigned here, but would perhaps enjoy and from which you would certainly learn. We will study art and history. You will better your penmanship,” he adds, with a knowing little smile that makes Will blush intensely.

Hannibal cannot help himself. In the sway of such a dizzying beauty such as this boy - his boy - he bends deeper at the waist. His lips graze the heat of Will’s cheek, drawing warmly over freckles and affectionate blush alike.

“I will teach you how to provide pleasure, not only in your intellect, but with mouth and hands, your tongue and more still. You will learn,” he murmurs, “how to savor your own pleasure. No longer a sudden sparkle of delight but fireworks, bursting blinding.”

Hannibal is helpless for him. He was certain there would never be another after Anthony, and though there are vast differences between them, no such uniqueness is a fault. They are both extraordinary beyond measure.

Hannibal’s wineglass clicks to the counter and he bends suddenly. Grasping Will by the thighs, he lifts the lad’s slender form against him. Skinny legs tighten around his waist, but Will holds fast to his lapels. Hannibal sighs against his mouth, rubbing their lips softly together.

“Tell me,” he says, “what you wish to learn, Mr. Graham.”

Will’s eyes are wide and his lips parted and he wants nothing more than to kiss Hannibal and be told what to do. But he has been given agency, he has been given the chance to _ask_ for something.

“I want to walk in the woods and learn about the trees,” Will whispers. “I want to learn how to pleasure you, to make you happy. I want to read the books you give me and tell you of others I’ve read that you might not have. I want...” Will bites his lip and squirms a little as he’s held. “I want to share your bed and wake up with you as often as you let me. Please.”

His headmaster hums agreement, eyes closing as he ducks his head and presses the sound against Will’s throat. Will’s lips widen with a frail whimper, and he releases Hannibal’s lapels only to wrap his arms around his neck instead. Clutching close, tightening his legs, he smiles as Dr. Lecter turns to carry him easily from the kitchen.

“Since you asked politely,” Hannibal allows, and Will grins, snorting boyish and sweet in his delight. His glasses skew as he presses his cheek to Hannibal’s own, and Hannibal lifts his free hand - the other tucked beneath Will’s bottom - to run fingers through his fine satin curls. “Tell me, what did Mr. Dimmond say in his letter to you?”

“That Spain is boring and he wants to come back.”

“Foolish boy,” murmurs the headmaster, not without a curl of affection in it. “You will be expected to maintain correspondence with him, during your time apart. Perhaps as part of your lessons in penmanship. I will review them before they are sent, to ensure clarity.”

“Yes, sir,” Will replies, delighted that his homework will be to write to his best friend about his experiences here, and wish for him to come home quickly so he can join them. The idea strikes Will suddenly, and he pulls back just enough to see Hannibal properly. “Will Anthony come to stay as well?”

“Out of my hands, I’m afraid,” his headmaster replies, and Will can see the displeasure this brings him, a shadow across his eyes like a cloud across the sun. Will nuzzles closer, pushing a kiss against his cheek in hopes to bring the light back. Hannibal makes a small sound, and runs his hand higher up Will’s back as he walks him toward the sitting room light to switch it off.

“I hope he will,” Hannibal says. “His family understands that he is best cared for here, when he is not with them. It depends wholly on their schedule. Their travels. Their whims, to busk him to and fro. It is of benefit for Mr. Dimmond to see more of the world.”

Hannibal draws a breath, as much from the ache of Anthony’s being away as from the span of little fingers across his cheek.

“When he returns to England, I would welcome him gladly to share the remainder of his summer with us,” Hannibal says. He stops in the entryway to the bedroom, offset from the rest of the suite. “Will you?”

Will wriggles against Hannibal. “Yes,” he sighs, and means it with all his heart.

It has been a strange transition from cool jealousy to calm resignation to genuine adoration for Anthony Dimmond. He remembers only thinking of him as the perfect prefect, as the pretty popular boy who Will would have nothing to do with since Anthony would never look his way. He remembers Anthony as the coy and clever little thing Hannibal so admired, and he remembers the soft, sweet boy who has held Will in his arms more times than he can now recall, after beatings, after edging, after far more pleasurable things.

Anthony is his friend. His best and only friend here. Will would love nothing more than to share the summer with him. Will presses a clumsy kiss against the headmaster’s cheek and noses against him.

Hannibal holds this gentle, remarkable boy against himself as he seeks the light beside the bed. It spills golden across the room, and Will’s wild curls flash bronze in its illumination. He is kind, good-hearted and hard-working. Stubborn nearly to a fault, in a way that - truthfully - Hannibal finds entirely admirable. Self-possessed and brave, generous of body and spirit.

He is beautiful.

Hannibal loves him beyond reason.

Tilting his head, Hannibal moves just enough to meet Will’s mouth. Delicate, warm lips part for him readily, unfurling wide and probing with his tongue that Hannibal gladly swallows between his own lips. He holds Will steady when the boy arches hard against him, fingernails catching against his jacket, heels digging into his spine.

Before now, they have maintained the order of headmaster and student. They will, still, carry on their roles to the other, with enthusiasm to dominate and submit, to teach and to learn. But the dawning heat between them, much akin to the sun’s warming of green grasses and broad expanses of leaves in the trees above, is a gentler thing, but no less extraordinary.

“Change into your sleep clothes,” Hannibal murmurs, taking another kiss from Will’s lips, and another. “I will bathe, and join you after.”

Will nods and lets himself be set down. He watches the headmaster only as far as the bathroom door, which he leaves just a little open, and moves only when the water in the shower starts to run.

It’s a test, Will knows it is, and he doesn’t bother to hide his grin as he seeks in his bag for the loose shirt Anthony had given him to sleep in. He keeps his boxers from the day, he will change them in the morning when he takes his shower. So clothed, he climbs into bed, but not beneath the sheets. He watches the bathroom door, breathes in the cool sandalwood smell that he knows so well from pressing his nose to the wiry hair at the base of Hannibal’s cock and sighs.

He is excited, if he allows himself to think about it. He is excited that he and the headmaster will get to leave the school together and travel elsewhere. He is excited that he will get to learn, that he will be given the space and time to absorb and perfect his lessons. He is excited that he will get to write to Anthony and tell him about them, and hope and beg and plead with him to join them both when he returns from Spain.

The shower shuts off and Will squirms where he sits, slipping his hands between his thighs so they don’t fiddle and twitch. He waits and keeps his eyes on the door, lip between his teeth, for his headmaster to return. Will sees the headmaster’s bare form in a glimpse as he passes through the crack left open, the first time he’s seen him fully unclothed, and only a glimpse.

But only that glimpse is intoxicating, dizzying. Will pushes his arms harder against himself and grinds his hips upward, cock stroking against his wrists as if he might still its stirring by doing so.

Hardly.

He listens to the quiet humming from within the bathroom, echoing low with the sonorous voice of his headmaster. His teacher. His friend, perhaps, in some strange way - like none Will has ever had or imagined he might. He thinks of his chest, thickly furred and the curls that twine silver throughout. He thinks of his hard, flat stomach.

Will thinks keenly of Dr. Lecter’s cock, hanging soft from the thatch of dark hair where Will has kissed and nuzzled and moaned, to bring his length to life with such vigor that it stands turgid against his cheek.

In some small way, Will knows he shouldn’t enjoy the thought so much. That little voice is easier to quiet than he ever imagined, and he lifts a hand to press his teeth against to muffle the moan that stirs from him.

Soft scraping betrays Hannibal’s shaving; his hum never wavers. Will watches the movement of his headmaster’s shoulders as he leans near to the mirror, how his muscles curve ferociously fierce and grown-up down to the bend just above his bottom.

Will thinks of Hannibal’s bottom, and sputters a giddy laugh against his hand.

He is naughty, as Dr. Lecter has said so many times. He is so very naughty.

The humming doesn’t stop, nor does the scratching of blade against skin, and Will leans back just a little more, pressing his shoulders to the pillow, to see better. He can’t see Hannibal’s reflection in the mirror, it is too far out of his eyeline, but he does get a beautiful view of the man’s muscles curving down his bottom and over, to his strong thighs, to his calves, down to his feet.

Hannibal is entirely masculine, the epitome of it. He is strong and he has hair on his chest and legs. He is heavy when he presses to Will, when he holds him. And his smell brings Will’s mind to a turning vortex, always. He doesn’t smell like a boy. Why, Will could hardly begin to guess, he cannot place the intricacies of that smell to any scale but he knows, he _knows_ that he and Anthony still need to grow into that smell, into that form, if they are lucky enough to have one like it.

The tap turns and water runs and Will shifts to lie on his side as he watches the door, chewing against the side of his nail pensively.

The splash of water halts the humming and tugs Will’s cock a little harder.

He tries not to think of cool water cascading down into his headmaster’s chest hair.

He fails, miserably, and can think of nothing else until the water stops. This, at least, relaxes the roiling, rocking rivets of tension in the pit of his tummy. Will raises his thumb to stroke once against his dick anyway, before tugging his pants so that they don’t obviously show his arousal. He curls his hands together, tucked beneath his cheek, and offers a small smile to Hannibal when he emerges, in nothing more than his underpants and a long sleep shirt.

Will’s breath hitches. Hannibal hears it, but doesn’t look towards him. The boy has never seen him so undone, and always in this, there is a risk. To reveal one’s self as the naked ape they are risks unspooling the carefully contrived consideration that one is above such human existence. Hannibal wears finely tailored suits, severe in cut and overwhelming in pattern, to appear above the rabble of the school he oversees.

He is relieved, but does not let it show, that Will’s overt fascination hardly seems to wane from seeing Hannibal in such a state as this.

“You may set your glasses beside the bed,” Hannibal tells him. Instruction gives guidance, a rulebook by which to play the game in which they are both engaged, too deep now to stop. He restrains a smile at the click of plastic as he settles to the bed, tugging back the sheets and single blanket to slip beneath.

Will settles beneath the blankets as well as he can. He doesn’t reach out to touch Hannibal yet, though he wants to. He does nothing more than watch Hannibal lie on his side and regard the boy before him.

“How do you usually sleep, Will?”

Will swallows, blush darkening his cheeks more. “With Anthony,” he replies softly. “Since you allowed it we’ve - it’s been a long time since I’ve slept alone. I like sleeping with him.”

Hannibal’s eyes soften, and he shifts to lie a little closer to the boy who is still so nervous from such gentle treatment. It’s endearing.

“And how do you two sleep together?”

Will blinks at him, bites his lip, and then with a deep breath moves not to tell him, but to show him. He takes one of Hannibal’s arms and lifts it, turning his back to the headmaster as he wriggles back against him, fitting perfectly to his relaxed bent form. He settles Hannibal’s arm over his middle and slides his little hand over it to hold it there.

Of course.

Seeking protection and warmth, making himself small against those he sees as so much larger than himself - the truth, where the headmaster is concerned, but more in spirit with Anthony. Trusting, in turning his back to them, and allowing himself to be held. Hannibal spreads his hand across Will’s stomach and presses his thighs beneath his bottom, surrounding him.

Will can barely breathe, and when he does, it sounds too loud, too unsteady. It’s as if he’s forgotten how to breathe at all, heart skipping forward in a stumble. The headmaster’s heart, by comparison, is steady and unmoved. A hypnotic rhythm, slow and stable, that lazily eases Will’s dizziness to less a deafening buzz and more a quiet hum.

“Sleep,” Hannibal murmurs, lips grazing in scarcely-there touches against Will’s shoulder. “Rest.” Another kiss, against the nape of Will’s neck, and a deep breath drawn in that stirs the little hairs on the back of Will’s neck and shivers him. “I daresay you will need it.”

Will squirms harder back against Hannibal, and tries to hide his grin against the pillow.

With a promise like that, how could he?


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hannibal rumbles approval against him, turning his cheek against Will’s hair like a big cat scent-marking something as its own. Perhaps he is, in a way, laying claim to Will in this as he has so many other ways. Perhaps on some deep and primordial level, other predators who would no doubt savor the hunt of this little cub will know him to be possessed by a far greater hunter than themselves._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

Hannibal nearly calls him Anthony when he awakens.

But this isn’t Anthony, long-limbed thing that he is. Anthony sprawls across him when they share a bed, laying on his chest or with legs and arms thrown akimbo over Hannibal’s form. Anthony snores, soft snorting little things. By compare, the boy beside Hannibal now is in the same sleepy curl he was when they slept, but turned now against his headmaster’s side when Hannibal turned to his back to ease the pins and needles from his arms at night.

As if coaxing him back to sleep, though he remains in that state himself, Will noses kittenish and sweet against Hannibal’s ribs. He could rest more. He should, considering his new responsibility in caring for a stubborn, rambunctious, and incessantly aroused boy for the summer.

But looking down the curves of their forms beneath the high thread count sheets and the soft, thin blanket laid atop, Hannibal finds that he is in much the same position of that which he just silently accused Will. His cock stands stiff, pushing up the covers in a tent across his hips. Easily relieved of his own accord, or just as easily ignored, in truth - a common condition in which men find themselves upon waking.

But few men are so fortunate as Hannibal, with a squirmy, warm, and ready boy at his side.

He draws his hand over Will’s curls, allows his fingers to tug them softly until Will makes a sound and parts his lips before pressing them together again. Then his fingers travel lower, following the graceful arch of his spine through the thin shirt he wears. As Hannibal’s fingers move back up, Will starts to stir awake, pressing against Hannibal’s side with sleepy weak hands like a cat, toes stretching and curling again until his lovely eyes open and he blinks them up at the headmaster.

For a moment, Will looks shocked, genuinely astounded that he is here, and then he seems to remember and that pretty blush floods his cheeks once more. He bites his lip.

“Good morning,” he whispers.

Hannibal hums, and turns slowly to his side to face him. Drawing his nose against his brow, into his hair, Hannibal inhales deeply the fresh and torrid scent of him. Like the Callery pear tree in bloom, when spring first warms its buds to bursting, he smells of primal innocence, utterly intoxicating.

“Good morning, Mr. Graham,” the headmaster answers. He does not ask yet about the boy’s musky arousal, nor the beads of dampness that cling to his pants. It is enough to breathe in and know. It is enough to let him fret, deliciously desirous and altogether uncertain of what to do when confronted by this new situation. “Did you sleep well?”

Will nods, straightening his legs out beneath the sheets, not seeking for Hannibal’s feet but finding them regardless, allowing his toes to spread and stretch over the headmaster’s. He feels flushed all over, in delight and arousal, nervousness and sleepiness. He had slept well, he always does when he sleeps against another. For the week Anthony has been gone, Will has tossed and turned, unable to find comfort in the suddenly entirely empty bed.

“I hope I didn’t wake you squirming,” Will apologizes. “Anthony complains sometimes.”

“No doubt because you infringe on his ability to occupy the whole of it, at once,” says the headmaster, and Will grins, snorting as he giggles. It’s true. Anthony spreads out all over, sometimes until Will is crammed against the wall, sometimes over the top of him. Once Anthony fell off the bed entirely, but he found it as funny as Will, once he got up again.

Hannibal smiles a little, and Will can feel the curve of his lips in his hair before they part against his curls. He tilts his head up and nuzzles under Hannibal’s chin, rough already with grown-up stubble. Even though it’s sharp, scraping harsh against his lips, Will pushes a clumsy kiss under his jaw and holds it there, wriggling closer still. His headmaster lifts his head and runs his hand down Will’s back again, palm covering the small of it. Will’s little cock jerks when he feels a fingertip tickle the top of his crack.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Mr. Graham?”

Sucking in a sharp breath, Will tenses. He should have his hands behind his back, folded together, but he can’t when they’re so close. He should stand with feet shoulder-width apart, but he can’t do that either because he’s laying down. Everything his headmaster’s voice bids him to do with that quiet question can’t be done, but he squeezes his thighs together to try and trap his stiffness there, managing only to painfully clench against his balls instead.

He doesn’t let up.

He flexes his muscles harder.

Hannibal walks his fingers from the plump rise of Will’s little bottom around his skinny hip, jutting from smooth skin. Pressing fingertips against his softly curved belly, Hannibal gently pries down the waistband of his pants, to bare his cock. Will bites his lip but makes a small sound anyway.

“Have you been enjoying naughty dreams, William?”

Will trembles, curling his hands against Hannibal’s chest where they came to rest. His eyes are wide, he lifts them to meet the headmaster’s. His cock twitches with the barest strokes. He doesn’t remember the last time he was allowed to come. A week maybe. Definitely when Anthony was still here. It’s been a long time, and he knows his endurance won’t be as good as the headmaster wishes.

“Naughty thoughts,” Will whispers. “Naughty thoughts of sharing a bed with you, and having you touch me, and letting me touch you.”

Hannibal circles his forefinger around the corona of Will’s cock, fingertip to thumb. He tightens it and lifts, a slow, lingering tug that stretches Will’s penis and frees a bead that runs hot and fragrant down over Hannibal’s finger. The boy’s fingernails leave small crescents against his chest, breath puffing in helpless bursts.

“Do you often wake this way?” Hannibal asks, as a doctor might a patient. Clinical, but interested. He takes great pains to keep his hips away so Will cannot feel the headmaster’s own throbbing erection yet.

Yet.

“Y-Yes,” Will stammers. He can’t fix it now, but he can be honest. He has to be; the headmaster will know if he isn’t. His belly hurts deep inside but it feels so good to be held taut in Hannibal’s firm grip this way.

“How often?”

“Every morning,” Will whispers against Hannibal’s throat. “Almost every morning.”

“And what do you do?” Hannibal asks as he swipes his thumb across the slit, pushing back Will’s wrinkled foreskin to glide beneath.

Will trembles but stays still, as he would were he standing, as he has, many times, holding his position while the cane glides teasing against his thighs, finding the gap between breaths and the most sensitive skin to strike.

“I touch,” he admits. “Anthony touches… just a leg between my own so I can rut against it while he tells me sweet and dirty things. He reminds me I can’t come, not until you say. I don’t, I promise I don’t -”

“But you wish that you could?”

“Very much,” Will breathes. “I want to come very much, sir.”

Hannibal rumbles approval against him, turning his cheek against Will’s hair like a big cat scent-marking something as its own. Perhaps he is, in a way, laying claim to Will in this as he has so many other ways. Perhaps on some deep and primordial level, other predators who would no doubt savor the hunt of this little cub will know him to be possessed by a far greater hunter than themselves.

Or maybe it’s simply that Will’s hair is soft as satin, silky and satisfying against his skin.

“And why do I disallow it?” Hannibal asks, sighing as he tightens the circle of his finger just to the proper side of pain. “Remind me, William.”

Will chokes on his words, gasping, laughing, sobbing all at once as his voice breaks. His balls are squeezed tight against his body, and he hopes that Hannibal doesn’t let go, because Will knows what will happen when he does.

“B-Because if I -”

Hannibal makes a sound of warning.

Will isn’t supposed to start sentences with conjunctions.

He whimpers and curls his hips towards Hannibal’s hand in apology, shuddering roughly when Hannibal wraps his remaining fingers around Will’s shaft. They don’t all fit, with his hand so big and Will’s cock so small still. He draws a breath. “Were I to spend as much time doing that - as much time coming,” he says, correcting himself as he echoes his headmaster’s lessons, “as I would like to, there would be no time in the day for anything else.”

Hannibal hums low again, and nods. He turns Will to his back and kneels above him, hand still holding back his orgasm, pulsing in time with his heart in Hannibal’s grip. His other hand comes to rest in Will’s hair and tightens, strands spiralling his fingers, head bent back and lips parted in a childish keening moan.

“But you do anyway, don’t you? Now and again, you wake up and find yourself filthy with it, brought about by dirty dreams.”

Will nods, biting his lip harder, eyes wide and pupils slowly filling in the pale blue around them.

“I can’t control it,” he says. “I wake up and I’m -” Will’s blush darkens but his smile grows. “I know I would have dreamed of you, even if I can’t remember. Or Anthony. And I feel...”

Hannibal continues to nose against Will’s hair, breathing in the subtle hints of worry and arousal, nervousness and pleasure, heat and panic. “And you feel?”

“Naughty,” Will breathes. “I feel so naughty for having disobeyed.”

Hannibal’s cock jumps at the words, jerking upward beneath the soft fabric of his pants. Will’s eyes dart to the movement and he keens, high and long, squirming aimless and eager under his headmaster. With a rumble, Hannibal runs his hand up Will’s throat, over his rabbit-quick pulse, to frame his face and smear his thumb across his mouth. Pretty petal-pink lips, flushing to scarlet, part obediently to take his headmaster’s thumb against his tongue.

His spittle clicks obscenely as he suckles, pupils dilated wide and lashes hooding his gaze.

“Wicked boy,” Hannibal scolds him, though his eyes narrow in a smile. “Unable to restrain yourself, even in sleep. What will happen if I let you go now?” he asks, eyes dropping meaningfully to where he holds Will’s cock hard and red within his fingers. It leaks copiously, bead after bead of clear slick threaded with white dripping over Hannibal’s hand.

Will makes a sound of dismay and sucks harder, lips tugging him deeper, eager to show his headmaster how good he can be, greedy for more. Hannibal pushes his thumb against the boy’s tongue until it curves, and he holds him knuckle-deep.

“Perhaps you will not remain unbound at all this break,” he suggests.

Will pales for a moment before the blush returns. He trembles beneath Hannibal, but he doesn’t shake his head, he doesn’t deny, he doesn’t beg. He has heard from Anthony the cruelties of being bound this way, having his little cock restrained and unable to find relief at all until he is unlocked and released again. In truth, the thought terrifies him, but it also excites him.

He wants to prove he can do it.

He wants to prove he can be good.

He wants to learn.

He makes a soft sound against Hannibal’s thumb and deliberately works his legs wider open, until the elastic on his underwear makes it impossible to spread further. Though the downy hair on his thighs has begun to darken, he is still softened by the remaining chubby curves of childhood even as he lengthens and grows lanky into his adolescence. The hair around his groin has begun to coarsen. There is none yet to be seen on chest or face.

He is beautiful now, as he was when they met, as he will continue to be. Hannibal cares little for the particular age of his special students, so much as for the fact that they will always be far younger than he. It is just as much an aesthetic delight to imagine himself older, greyer, with two beautiful young men at either side vying for his attention, as it is to see them now, like this.

“Terrible boy,” Hannibal murmurs, as Will shifts clumsily on the bed to try and free himself. Scraping down his pants inch by inch, rocking his hips down against the sheets to work them off, he continues to suck, to leak, to beseech Hannibal for more with his wide-eyed gaze and ready body. “When I release you -”

Will shakes his head, cheeks burning hot in admission of his failure before it’s even occurred.

“When I release you,” Hannibal says again, “you will come into my hand, and lick it clean again. Do you understand? I will not have my sheets dirtied by a misbehaving boy who cannot control himself.”

Will makes an entirely helpless noise and closes his eyes as he nods, cheeks bright red now, pants halfway down his thighs. He can feel the way Hannibal holds him, patient and deliberate, entirely practiced in giving pleasure and forcing endurance. He knows how to entirely bring Will apart with nothing more than a properly stroked thumb or tickling fingers.

He is exquisite.

Will could ask for no better teacher, no other man who could bring him to his basest vulnerabilities just so.

He holds his breath as Hannibal caresses him, teases more naughty little drops from him, and then, with a raising of his eyebrow, Hannibal slips his thumb free and loosens his grip and Will comes, moaning his pleasure. He fills Hannibal’s palm as his cock continues to pulse, so full from so many days left untouched, unstroked, forced to hold it in. He trembles and seeks blindly with little hands against Hannibal’s larger ones, just to ground himself.

When he’s finished he opens his eyes, bleary and unseeing, and bites back a whimper as Hannibal strokes him again, and again, to milk the last of his pleasure from him. When Hannibal sits back, Will immediately clambers out from underneath him to kneel before him instead, lapping from his palm like a puppy, eyes up and wide and eager to please. His pants remain around his thighs, his hair is a mess, and he looks utterly debauched already.

Sweet, lovely thing.

His tongue strokes flat and broad through the pearlescent release gleaming in Hannibal’s palm. He knows when his boys have been naughty, whether by their own hand or the other or by simple biological function. He knows, from the copious offering of seed in his hand, that Will has been very good indeed.

Hannibal strokes his clean hand through Will’s hair, pushing back his curls, gripping and releasing them. The viscous semen gathers on the tip of his tongue and disappears past his lips. His mouth glistens with it, when he nuzzles close to suck Hannibal’s skin clean.

“Beautiful boy,” Hannibal praises him as Will sits back on his knees, feet tucked beneath his bottom and elastic stretched tight around his thighs. His cock rests little and limp against his lap, and come shines on his chin where it’s dripped. When Will grins, unashamedly pleased with himself, Hannibal returns his smile and turns his wrist, folding Will’s curls in his hand to bend him low again.

Will’s tongue presses against his bottom lip, mouth spread wide as Hannibal lowers the waistband of his pants to expose himself, aching hard now. Will whimpers, asking _please_ without using any words at all. The headmaster does little more than relax the wall of muscle in the pit of his belly, and hums low as his own release unspools.

It paints white against Will’s flushed cheeks, dripping onto his tongue and against his long lashes, over his nose and down his chin. Some gets in his hair, weighing the curls down against his face.

When Will slips his tongue back into his mouth and swallows, opening his beautiful blue eyes to look at his headmaster, Hannibal wishes only that he had his other boy here, too, to make the moment even sweeter. He would obediently lick Will clean, kiss and touch him, press close and whisper against him, sending Hannibal coy little looks.

Both are such lovely things.

Hannibal praises Will with a soft word and a kiss to his forehead.

“Good boy,” he murmurs. “Very good.”

Will shivers at the praise.

“Now you shall go to the bathroom and clean yourself up. I will make breakfast for us and we can enjoy another meal together.”

Will grins, nodding, sitting back on his heels again. Had he a tail it would be wagging in childish joy.

“Thank you, headmaster,” he sighs.

“You are quite welcome, Mr. Graham.”

He gives Will another warm stroke through his hair, a light tug and a little shake. A pat on the cheek signals for him to do as told, and Will nearly falls from the bed in his eagerness, body weak and head spinning, underpants still bound around his legs. Hannibal lifts his fingers but no more than that, watching as Will catches himself instead. He drops his pants behind and pulls his shirt off and leaves both on the floor, padding quickly across the floor to the bathroom.

Hannibal watches, the plump jiggling of his bottom, the strength in unsteady legs, and his stomach aches in substitute for another stirring in his cock. Only when he hears the water start, does he stand. He tucks himself away, wiping down with a tissue first, and makes the bed. He spies a drop of seed that spilled unswallowed, a single dark spot against the sheets.

“May I use your soap?” Will calls out, a prelude to how he’ll no doubt shout and frolic around the house all summer, until it’s time for Hannibal to leash him into good behavior again. They will trade, back and forth, freedom and bondage, exuberant displays of youth in play of all varieties and careful shaping beneath cock and hand and cane into emergent manhood.

“You may,” Hannibal says, reaching to thumb across the wet spot. He brings it to his lips, lips bent against, and tastes.

Naughty boy.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Will’s trunk thumps heavy to the gravel as he drags it out of the back seat, pebbles hissing beneath as he drags it out a little further. He takes a step back to close the car door, but there is another door loudly closed before he does. Will blinks, then looks towards the house._
> 
> _“Ah,” Dr. Lecter says. “I should have mentioned there is another guest staying with us.”_

They spent two more days at the school before departing for the headmaster’s home, in the headmaster’s car. Will feels incredibly spoiled as he leans out the window and watches the fields envelope them in their safe summer embrace. He doesn't realize they are all part of an estate until the house comes into view around the bend in the country road.

Hannibal’s home is immense and open, it takes Will several moments of just staring before he realizes his lips are parted and his eyes are wide. He has never seen a place so beautiful.

“Sir,” he whispers. “It's a palace.”

“Of sorts,” Dr. Lecter agrees warmly, as they turn onto the gravel drive and Will switches windows, from the side to the front, hands against the dash.

Before them the house looms larger, gabled roofs peaked sharp upon the ivory brick edifice. It is substantial from the front, but spans back far and deep from the road. It is a house with many rooms and many secrets, too many of the former for one man alone, and too many of the latter to be all but scarcely constrained within its walls. The nictitating membranes of it shutters are still closed, waiting to be awakened, and the trees that shade the house over span back to a far-reaching wild wood, its branches veining black into the late-afternoon sky.

It was afforded to him by the school, his choice of residence when he agreed to stay on permanently as headmaster. Its distance and cumbersome size made it an unlikely choice, but one within the school’s generous budget for its flaws. To Hannibal’s mind, it is a fine prize to be enjoyed when time is afforded enough to spend there.

And it is a prize that pales in compare to the one that hurtles himself out of the car no sooner than it’s come to a stop in the drive.

Will stops where he can take in the full impressive size of it, hands at his sides and chin upraised. He is delighted, excited, nervous enough that there is a lump in his throat, and he realizes that there is truly nowhere else he wants to be this summer than here.

He hopes Anthony’s letters get redirected from the school - he cannot wait to write to him of this place.

The car door closing behind him has Will turning with a grin to his headmaster again. He makes his way over with careful steps and stands before the man, obedient and lovely. They had not talked of how the summer would go, though both have their own ideas as to what is expected. Will thinks of the dinner they shared the first night they spent alone together, and how Hannibal had insisted on them dropping formalities. It was comfortable. It has been since.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” Will tells him earnestly. “It’s beautiful. It actually suits you perfectly.”

Were Hannibal one to allow fosterage of doubt within himself, any lingering would have been immediately assuaged by this. The headmaster inclines his head in gracious thanks, allowing Will to see the trace of a smile beneath his eyes.

“My pleasure entirely, Mr. Graham. If you would -”

“My things,” Will interjects, enthusiasm overriding etiquette. “From the car.”

“Yes, thank you.”

The boy turns without hesitation, but for a moment’s pause to tug his slipping sock up to his knee. His stride is longer, limbs lankier than when they first made acquaintance. There is within him the first awkward emergence of an adult’s strength, like the first uneven petals freed in a peony’s grand unfurling. Every one of them, Hannibal will know. Each change he will trace with attentive fingertips, and guide to blossoming.

Will’s trunk thumps heavy to the gravel as he drags it out of the back seat, pebbles hissing beneath as he drags it out a little further. He takes a step back to close the car door, but there is another door loudly closed before he does. Will blinks, then looks towards the house.

“Ah,” Dr. Lecter says. “I should have mentioned there is another guest staying with us.”

Anthony’s grin is radiant, even from as far away as the porch, before he bounds down the steps towards Will.

Will makes a sound of unabashed delight and lets his trunk rest where it fell as he rushes to his friend. They catch each other in a tight embrace, laughter and quickly spoken words between them that don’t carry to Hannibal. Anthony clings to Will hard enough to swing him in a half-circle, setting him down and resting his hands against his shoulders.

“Haven’t changed a bit, have you?” Anthony tells him, smiling wide.

“You have,” Will laughs. “You’ve a tan now!”

“Spain was dreadful,” Dimmond dolefully declares. “The beach was nice, but all that time with my parents - they couldn’t have made it more dull. We were in a museum, with armor and weapons and all manner of interesting artifacts, and do you know where they spent the whole time?”

Will’s eyes widen, and he shakes his head.

“The pottery,” he says, eyes wide. “You’ve never seen anything like it. Not even, you know, interesting pottery with naughty things on it like the Greeks do. Just terra cotta, over and over and - hello headmaster,” he says, as Hannibal’s shadow falls across them. Immediately Anthony’s spine stiffens, and Will finds that his own does in response, without needing to even think to correct it.

“Mr. Dimmond,” he says with a smile in his eyes. “So good to see you again. I trust you’ve found the house to your liking?”

“Yes sir, the car brought me directly. Thank you for entrusting your key to me.”

“The house itself,” Dr. Lecter corrects him. “Not only the key.”

“All as you asked. I haven’t gotten anywhere I shouldn’t. I know where not to go,” he says, turning another smile to Will, just a peek, as if to make sure he’s still there.

“If you would, help Mr. Graham settle in? I wish to make my rounds of the place.”

“Of course, sir.” Anthony gets a soft hand through his hair and a gentle tug in thanks before Hannibal moves into the house ahead of them, leaving the boys to take their time together. Will slips his arm through Anthony’s and leans against his friend. He has missed him more than he can explain, even just the weeks he has been away. He feels whole, now, being here with both Hannibal and Anthony.

The older boy kisses Will’s hair and hums.

“You’ve used his soap.”

“Several times,” Will says, pride warming his cheeks. “We stayed at the school together a few days before coming out.” He watches Anthony a moment before turning them both to move towards the car again to retrieve the bags in there. “I thought that was wonderful enough but this…” He sighs. “I never expected this. I never expected you to be here. I admit I would have written to you begging you to come had you not been.”

“He didn’t tell you?” Anthony grins, delighted by this. “We’d planned that I’d spend the last half of the break here. Admittedly, I came home early. Terribly sick, you see,” he says, feigning a poorly performed cough. “But didn’t want to trouble mummy and daddy with ending their stay early. What a kind headmaster we have to put us both up.”

Will snorts when he laughs, slinging a bag across his shoulder, and taking one end of the trunk as Anthony hoists the other.

“So you stayed together at the school,” Anthony asks, voice lowering a little, though the headmaster is no doubt far inside the house by now, and checking it over to ensure that Anthony hasn’t been naughty in his few days’ stay alone. “Did he - I mean, did you - you know… yet?”

Will flushes dark and shakes his head quickly, peeking from beneath his fringe at his friend. He had hoped, of course, that being alone would encourage the headmaster to extend that kindness to him, but he had not. Not yet. That said, Will has not felt so free to be himself, and to explore his pleasure and his desires as he has been in the last few days. This summer will change his life, he is certain.

“No,” he says after a while, hoisting his bag up on his shoulder. “But… I hope he will. Soon. Did you? At school, I mean?”

Anthony shakes his head, as they manage up the stairs and both instinctively lower their voices. “Not often, there. Once in a while, usually before a long weekend. Most of the time it’s happened here.”

Will nearly drops the trunk, catching it with both hands and sending his shoulder bag painfully to the pit of his elbow. He blinks wide at his friend, whispering. “And the first time?”

“Here,” Anthony confirms, with a rakish grin and the devil in his narrowed eyes.

Will bites his lip and tries to suppress a little sound that comes through regardless. Here. In this house. Anthony Dimmond lost his virginity in this very house. The thought is extraordinary, knowing Anthony as intimately Will does, that he was ever in the same position as Will is now. Anthony winks and continues up the stairs.

They drop the trunk at the foot of an immense bed that Anthony declares to be theirs to share. “There are eight rooms to choose from, and this one is my favourite. Beyond Hannibal’s bedroom, of course.”

The room is remarkable, done up in dark masculine tones, heavy silks, warm furs Will is certain are real. There are paintings on the walls of landscapes and castles, beautiful young men holding fruit above statues of beautiful young men posing with nothing at all. It is a room fit for a king, or two young princes, as the case may be. Will laughs - he can’t help it.

“How is this real?” He whispers.

Anthony shakes his head, lips pursed to a smile of prideful delight. “Asked myself that for years,” he begins, then making a correction, clears his throat. “I’ve asked myself that for years,” he says with a grin, as both know their headmaster would prefer they speak. “If you find the answer, let me know. In the meantime…”

Will’s prefect takes his arm, and shows off the house as if it were his own. As if it were Will’s home now, too. It is, Will reminds himself, as he stares wide-eyed at the enormous bathroom, nothing at all like the ones in his own house nor at their school. Polished tile and dark walls. A shower and a separate bathtub, big enough for two and with little claws at its base. Big fluffy towels twice the size of any Will has ever owned.

It is his home now too, Will tells himself again as he’s paraded through library and living room, a dazzling array of rich textures and patterns almost dizzying him. The garden and the yard, and the woods beyond, all theirs. And even the rooms where Anthony touches a hand to a closed door and says they’re not to enter, even those are Will’s, and he will never, ever enter them.

“And Dr. Lecter’s bedroom?”

Anthony clucks his tongue, turning with Will into the kitchen. “That’s for him to show you, not me.”

Will shivers, and doesn’t ask again. Instead, he catches Anthony around the waist and turns him near, and kisses him on the lips. It’s sweet and gentle, a welcome and a promise for more, and Will feels his cheeks warm from something so innocent in a place he is certain will teach him vices he cannot even imagine.

He pushes to his toes and wraps his arms around Anthony’s shoulders and laughs when he does.

“Do not linger in the doorway,” comes a warm voice from the kitchen itself, and Will steps back with a hand against his lips and gives Anthony a narrow-eyed look.

“We mustn’t linger,” Anthony repeats, tilting his chin and holding a ridiculously pompous pose as he marches them into the kitchen. “We must be purposeful in what we do. We must choose our activities thoughtfully, so that we can learn many new things even during our time away from school. We mustn’t sleep nor stay up too late, without permission,” he continues, the proud prefect’s demeanor breaking as he plants his hands against the counter and pushes up to his toes, regarding his aproned headmaster across from him with a grin.

“You’ve been cleaning,” Dr. Lecter notes, with a warm thrum of pleasure beneath his words.

“I have been,” Anthony answers, each word plucked as if it were a ripe grape to be savored. “It was very dusty when I arrived, and I needed to keep my hands busy,” he adds, delighted. Hannibal’s eyes narrow, though hardly with displeasure.

“A reward, I think, is appropriate for such an undertaking. What would be a fitting prize for this, Mr. Dimmond?”

Will comes closer, careful not to linger in the doorway, and after a moment’s hesitation, he brings himself up onto the stool beside Anthony.

“You know what I’d like,” the prefect begins.

“One can imagine.”

“But not for me,” Anthony grins. “I want it for Will.”

Will blinks, surprised and taken aback, and turns to look a this friend. Anthony continues to casually hang on to the counter, just slightly bent over it. Hannibal raises a brow and the boy smiles wider, cheeks warming.

“You would give him such a gift so soon?”

“If he’s been good,” Anthony confirms. “In your eyes, sir, then absolutely.”

The headmaster’s wine-dark attention turns to Will, and in an instant, Will knows his cheeks have reddened even more. Will’s throat jerks as he swallows, awaiting judgment, and he nearly loses himself to laughter when Dr. Lecter inclines his head.

“That is a particularly generous offer, Mr. Graham. What do you say to Mr. Dimmond?”

Will swallows hard and turns his gaze to the boy beside him, stretched proud and lovely and gazing down at him as only Anthony is able. He leans in to kiss his cheek, sweet and soft, and murmurs his thanks for whatever is in store. He realizes he couldn’t care less if it were a strapping or a fingering, a kiss or a treat of delicious food. The fact that Anthony wants to give it to him, and that Hannibal thinks he has earned it, is enough.

“Thank you, Anthony,” he tells him.

“Both of you, I think, should enjoy this reward,” Hannibal says. “As a welcoming gift, and in thanks for Mr. Dimmond’s astute attention to the house in my absence.”

Anthony ducks his head and laughs, a delighted tension bringing him to shifts of movement, little flickers of pleasant tension, already a looseness here that would not for an instant be permitted in the headmaster’s office. “Thank you, sir,” he says, before turning towards Will with an arched brow. “You don’t know what it is, do you,” Anthony grins.

As Will settles back to his seat with a nervous little laugh, he shakes his head. Anthony finally rests back on his heels and turns to Will, wrapping one arm around his neck, and cupping the other hand to his ear. “We get to play together,” he murmurs warmly. “And we both get to finish.”

Will’s eyes widen and he sits back to look at Anthony, trying to find a lie in his words. Surely there can’t be such a generous gift on the first day. Surely Anthony is playing with him. He turns to look at Hannibal and sees the man just watching them, just smiling in that soft mysterious way that only touches his eyes. He means it. They both do.

Will turns back to Anthony and gives him a bright smile, delighted.

“Thank you,” he says again, slipping from the chair and moving around the counter to thank the headmaster as well. He wishes he could kiss him as he did Anthony. He wishes he could wrap his arms around him and be held like he was in the headmaster’s rooms at the school. He offers only his submission and his obedience, his unending affection, with a nuzzle against his hand.

Hannibal lifts his hand, turns it over, and presses it to Will’s cheek. His thumb passes over his lips and does not bend them out of shape or push them apart, but merely traces their shape. Will touches them, with gentle intent, to the pad of his finger and hears from his headmaster a low sound, pleased.

“There is time yet before dinner,” Dr. Lecter says to them both, giving Will’s cheek a soft squeeze. “You may use it to settle in, or explore the grounds. Or you may wash up and help me. I always appreciate an extra pair of hands.”

Will turns to Anthony and tilts his head in question, smiling when Anthony just narrows his eyes. It occurs to him how jealous he had gotten the first time, watching Anthony and Hannibal interact without the use of words at all, and how easily he interacts with the two of them just the same now. It warms him and makes him giddy. He suddenly wants to cry, he’s so happy.

“I’d love to help, sir,” Will tells the headmaster, turning back to him, and bites his lip as Anthony settles both feet to the ground again and wanders around the counter to them both with the clear intent of helping as well.

Hannibal considers them, each in equal measure, and steps aside to allow easy access to the sink for them to wash their hands. There is no punishment here, there is no heavy implication of a test. This is just two boys helping their mentor in the kitchen, and it’s incredibly welcome. Anthony is set to chop vegetables while Will is instructed on how to cut meat, Hannibal standing behind him to guide his hands until he is left to work by himself, and manages admirably.

Their quiet chatter and the movement between them, seeking their headmaster’s help when they have a question, but guiding each other just as much - it twists something so warm in Hannibal as to be unwelcome, but the declaration of it as such does little to remove that persistent thorn from his chest. He is not a man given to easy affection, nor much at all, in truth. He is not a man to let his guard down at any point, especially when it comes to his most precious students.

But for a moment, this particular summer evening when there is far more warmth created among them than even from the sun outside, Hannibal allows himself to relax.

There will be time enough for aught else that he has imagined for them.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The knock does not startle the headmaster in his bed. He could hear their furtive whispers and feet padding all the way down the hall. Hannibal turns another page in his book, though he’s hardly following the words now, instead distracted by a pique of curiosity as to what his two terrible boys could desire from him at this hour._
> 
> _No possibility that comes to mind is an unpleasant one._

They share dinner, made with all their work. Certainly, the carrots could be more evenly cut. There is an imperfect distribution of meat. But Hannibal has granted them their first evening together as one not of education, but enjoyment, and he finds that each too-thick, still-crisp carrot is an unexpected pleasure, knowing that it is the two boys who share his table that made it that way.

Will cannot avoid a pang of disappointment when, once he and Anthony have washed up dinner, his headmaster bids them both goodnight. Anthony holds a hand against Will’s arm as he starts to step after him, tempering the drive that Will could no more fight than he could his own heartbeat. It skitters faster. He wants what he knows is coming. He knows, thanks to Anthony, why he’s been brought here.

He craves the sharp slap across his cheek and the fingernails dug into his tender thighs. He wants to know a greater pain than even that, and to feel his virginity taken from him by the only man who so wholly understands his needs. But Anthony, while still young, knows his needs as well, and so Will heeds the hand that stays him, and echoes his prefect in bidding their headmaster goodnight.

“Never on the first night,” Anthony tells him, once Dr. Lecter’s door has clicked closed. “Which is why he was so generous to us. That, and my cleaning the whole damned house except the secret rooms.”

Will grins and gently shoves Anthony's shoulder. The house looks impeccable, and it is a credit to his prefect. He can be patient. He can enjoy his friend until they both come, sputtering with laughter and breathless in bed together. It is enough. It is more than.

“What are we allowed to do?” Will asks.

“Anything we like, really. I had terrible jetlag the first few nights, I stayed curled up in the library sleeping in his chair when I finally dozed off.”

Will bites his lip with a smile, finding that so easy to imagine.

“With play, anything we wish,” Anthony grins. “We’ve the entire night to enjoy ourselves entirely.”

Will’s cheeks warm further. “What shall we do, then? What do you want to do with me?”

“Take you to bed,” Anthony confides, his whisper conspiratorial and bright as he brings Will against himself and folds his arms around his neck. “Take all our clothes off. Lay under the covers like at school, and -”

“And?”

“I think you know what follows ‘and’,” Anthony laughs, and then all at once he divests himself of Will and races for the stairs. His feet hammer hard against the stairs as he barrels upward, flicking off the lights as he goes and catching the knob at the top of the bannister. Anthony spins as Will gives close pursuit, and when they finally collide laughing inside their bedroom, Anthony hushes him with hands against his cheeks and a firm kiss.

Will is giddy, already hard just from being here, from being conditioned to respond to both of their voices, as much in pleasure and comforting conversation as in command. He holds to Anthony’s hands and then sets his own to his narrow waist, grinning into their kiss as his fingers start to work against the button and fly of Anthony’s pants.

“I thought about you,” Will admits between kisses. “From the day you flew out ‘til we got here. I would have begged Hannibal to let you come here had you not shown up on your own. On my knees, and everything.”

“He’d have liked that,” Anthony laughs. He kisses Will rather than confess how desperately he begged Hannibal to let him come for the summer. It wasn’t his place to ask. When he was told that Will would be sharing the house, Anthony knew he would do best to demure and understand that with his exit from their school so near on the horizon. He knew he should let Will have this, alone.

But he couldn’t stand the thought of it - being without Hannibal, and being without Will. He couldn’t bear the cruelty it seemed to not be there to guide Will, as he has before. To not be there to make sure he’s taking care of their headmaster. Anthony needs this summer, as much as Will desires it, to make sure that he can go from their school with any sort of peace of mind.

Hannibal understood, when Anthony wept against his thigh as if he were a child. Hannibal understood, and scolded him softly for his histrionics.

Anthony was grateful for the grounding.

“I wanted to be here,” Anthony says, and in that is enough. He tugs Will with him towards the wide bed - four times as big, at least, as the one into which they cram together at school. They spill against it in a tangle of limbs and half-removed clothes, in messy kisses swept hot across cheeks and chin and lips.

Will sits astride his friend and works off his shirt first, finding himself pinned to his back with a giggle not moments later as Anthony casually removes his own. There is no light on in the room but there needn’t be, outside the summer sky has lingering light still, and even without it, they know each other by heart now.

Nights upon nights spent in Anthony’s room, some nights resting together, others romping and rutting ‘til they were breathless, tears of pleasure squeezed from the corners of their eyes as they whispered to each other to hold on, to not come, to be good.

“I always want you here,” Will admits to him, pressing a hand to his face as he laughs, Anthony’s lips tight around his nipple. “This entire summer, and after, always.”

The words catch at Anthony, enough that for an instant the splay of his hands against Will’s ribs are uncertain, and the latched suckle against his nipple loosens. It’s only for an instant, but they have been through enough together that Will gathers Anthony in his arms and Anthony goes, allowing himself to be nuzzled and kissed all along his cheek and jaw and throat. He grasps Will against him, one arm stuffed underneath, the other above.

He squeezes him, close, but rather than respond with words to Will’s sweetness, Anthony slips his leg between Will’s own instead.

“As much as I can be,” Anthony promises, not dismayed but instead pleased by how childish it sounds. “For as long as I can be.”

Will knows this about Anthony too, so he grins and squeezes him back, and draws his knees up to welcome the older boy between them.

“Good,” he tells him, and arches up to kiss against Anthony’s parted lips. “We can make as much noise as we like out here.”

Anthony snorts but doesn’t deny it. They certainly can. He certainly has, voice pulled tight and desperate on keening and weeping and sobs of pleasure. He knows Will’s will as well. He knows he will be there to experience it and enjoy it with him, and as much as it tugs a gentle string of petulant jealousy, it also soothes it with the thought of how genuinely Will loves him.

He genuinely loves him back, though hell if he would ever admit it. He’s learned that masking, that apparent disregard from their master.

“I don’t ever want to leave bed,” Will says after a moment, laughing, and grabbing against Anthony to wrestle him to his back and sit atop, putting in as much of his meagre weight as he can before he’s upended again. “Loser has to suck?” He offers, trying to gather his arms beneath himself for leverage.

“That’s hardly a loss, is it?” Anthony points out. “How about… loser is sucked. And fondled and tickled and used, until we make enough noise that he must come in here to tell us off?” Before Will can answer, Anthony presses his fingers against his ribs and has him shrieking with giggles, weakened immediately for Anthony’s attack to pin him and hold him down.

They play together like puppies, snarling laughter and growling joy, flailing limbs and tangling kisses when they can find the other's lips through the tussle. Anthony is taller, stronger, older, but Will is wiry and quick. Anthony thinks he has him pinned at one point, until Will squirms beneath his arm and escapes. He clings to Anthony's back, hard little cock already prodding his bottom, and Anthony retaliates by falling to his back and trapping Will between himself and the mattress.

He tries to turn over to his stomach, atop Will, but Will keeps his arms secured around Anthony's neck. His prefect - laughing, gasping - tries to turn over to his side but Will puts an arm around his hip. The other side finds the same response, and Anthony lays splayed and helpless atop the younger boy who clutches to him like a koala bear.

Anthony's long, labored sigh gives Will his victory, though none of this is a loss in anything but name.

Will kisses against Anthony's neck, hand dropping to stroke him as they lie together. He eases his hold to allow the older boy to move and squirm against him. Will follows Anthony over when he rests on his side and arches beautifully for Will to see.

At school, they've hardly the space to be so showy. They have learned to coordinate limbs and bodies to stay within the confines of the tiny bed. Here, they have space to move, sheets so smooth they feel like satin and soft enough to sink into. Will follows as Anthony slips his knees beneath himself, and draws his kisses from the prefect’s neck, to his spine, and down, down, to the curve of his bottom.

“You look good like that,” Will tells him, and Anthony snorts, deepening the arch in his back. “Stay.”

“You’re not in charge yet,” Anthony reminds him with a grumble, but he’s forced to hide his smile in the cavern of his folded arms.

It only grows as Will reaches around him to fumble at his trouser fastenings, and finally becomes a laugh when his trousers and pants go all at once down past his bottom. His cock, jutting proudly, gets stuck in the waistband of his pants and when Will reaches to unhook the band of elastic, Anthony’s cock bounces up against his stomach.

“Lift up your knees,” Will tells him. His words become heat against the tender wrinkled bud of Anthony’s bottom and his prefect moans, arching his belly towards the bed.

“Why?”

“So I can get them off.”

“But you - wait,” Anthony says, reaching back to catch Will’s wrists in his hands and tilting face-first against the mattress. He turns his head aside and laughs, already breathless. “What if we - what if we take this into his room?”

“You said he’d have to show me that room.”

“But do you really think he’d throw us out? He might beat us for it,” Anthony considers, not an unwelcome possibility by any stretch. “Imagine if we could show him that - even though we’re allowed to come - we don’t?”

Will blinks at him, eyes wide and lips parted as though to deny the idea outright. Surely the headmaster would have invited them to his room is he wanted them there? But then again, both of them had gotten into the habit of showing up at his office unannounced just to play. This can’t be much different, then, can it?

“Shit,” Will whispers. “That’s brilliant.”

Anthony grins and slips to lie flat on the bed, rolling to his back to give Will a playful look. “I’ve a habit,” he confesses, “of skirting the edge of his patience and rules here. He hasn’t many, but when you know how to push...” He bites his lip and Will watches his cock twitch. Will laughs and shakes his head and sits back against his heels.

“We should make an entrance then,” he suggests. “Something that will have to have him watching, even though we will get a whipping for it later.” Will’s own cock hardens at the thought. “Does he have anything he likes to see you wear? Or use that we can find now without breaking any rules?”

Anthony considers it. He knows their headmaster enjoys tormenting them over their uniforms. He knows he enjoys seeing them entirely bare. But there have been mornings - here, only - that Anthony wearing only very little has drawn a look that stiffened his prick in an instant. He grins at Will, narrow-eyed, and pulling him close, tells him what they’ll do.

The knock does not startle the headmaster in his bed. He could hear their furtive whispers and feet padding all the way down the hall. Hannibal turns another page in his book, though he’s hardly following the words now, instead distracted by a pique of curiosity as to what his two terrible boys could desire from him at this hour.

No possibility that comes to mind is an unpleasant one.

“Come in,” he says.

The knob turns and a little hand clasps the door to push it open. It’s Will, as Hannibal had expected. Anthony would not have knocked, terrible boy.

“Good evening, sir,” the young man says. “May I come in?”

“You may.”

Will bites his lip and slips in through the crack in the door. He’s in his school socks, pulled up high to his knees, and a shirt over the top that must be Anthony’s, for it covers Will down to the soft downy hair on his thighs.

“Anthony and I were enjoying your gift to us,” he begins, fidgeting with his fingers to draw the eye just where he wants it. “And we realized that it cannot be a gift, truly, if you are not there to watch us enjoy it.” He swallows, looks behind himself, though Anthony has yet to enter. “Sir, there is no greater thrill than to have your eyes on us when we play. May we take our gift here?

Hannibal hopes that his ecstasy, near to a swoon at the words, registers to them as pensive hesitation. He turns back to his book for a moment more, as if considering, and allows the pause between them to grow pregnant. Finally, he inclines his head - no more than that, no less - and fighting down a smile, glances towards Anthony who enters when Will waves him in.

Anthony’s shirt rides a little high over his briefs, in athletic socks rather than part of their uniform. It is all so deliberately chosen to appear accidental, their hair mussed by fingers shoved against the other. Their plan is a wicked one, indeed, but Hannibal could not allow himself to be seen as someone who rejects a gift graciously given.

“The end of the bed is yours,” he says, glancing up above his glasses, perched on the end of his nose.

Anthony grins bright, and moves without hesitation to climb onto it. He has not been touched since he left for Spain, he has not been allowed to touch - as per Hannibal’s usual orders - until he is touched again by his headmaster, or allowed to be touched by another. He rests, now, on his knees and watches Hannibal as he settles on all fours, hearing Will walk up behind him, feet hesitant on the thick carpet before he climbs into the bed too.

“I’m glad you let Anthony come here,” Will says, laying against his friend’s back and nuzzling between his shoulders as he watches his headmaster with an expression of pure youthful innocence. “I’ve been wanting to play with him for you since he went away.”

How devious these boys have become, Hannibal marvels. The innocence they feign yet holds so much truth in it that did Hannibal himself not know their inner natures, he would take them at face value. They are every bit as wicked as he - perhaps moreso given that all which has occurred between them has been by their choice.

Ordinary boys would have taken their stripes and gone along their way. Naughty boys would have needed a second round of corporal punishment to ensure their lessons were learned. But they are something else entirely, as eager to engage in wantonness as they are to learn from it, to take punishment and pleasure in equal measure, to come to him and lay upon each other at the foot of his bed and tempt him.

“Show me what you’ve imagined, William.”

Will grins, and he feels Anthony shiver beneath him and turn to catch his eye. Will pushes himself to sit and presses the heel of his hand against the dip in Anthony’s back to deepen the bend of it. Anthony is wearing his shirt, he Anthony’s. They are playing a dangerous and wonderful game before a man who could change his mind at any moment, and turn their play into punishment.

Neither know which outcome they crave more.

Will slips his hands down Anthony’s back to his bottom, cupping the curve of it and hooking his fingers beneath the elastic of the waistband. He snaps it just once against Anthony’s skin and grins.

“I dreamed of Anthony like this,” he admits. “On his knees. And I peeled his underwear away.” He does so, now, slowly and deliberately, feeling his own cock tent hard against the pants he still wears. “And bent over and pushed my tongue deep, deep into him.” He glances to Hannibal, as he lowers his lips to the warm clenching muscle between Anthony’s cheeks.

“I woke wet in your bed, sir,” he whispers. “You made me take the belt, my hand between my legs, until I came again with your permission. Do you remember?” Will grins as Anthony curses softly, arching his back deeper and spreading his thighs at the words.

Hannibal watches, his calm less one of serenity than of a predator slowly coiling muscle by muscle to seize upon prey. He blinks, and tilts his head, once. “I remember.”

“And it was all just thinking about doing this to him,” Will confesses, their headmaster’s attention drawn for an instant to the way that Anthony’s hole clenches and loosens beneath Will’s breath. “Not touching myself. Not anything else.”

“Show me.”

Their headmaster’s low rumble quakes deep to the pit of Will’s stomach, coiling tight. He turns to drag his nose against wrinkled skin, darker than that around it, and more delicate too. Up to Anthony’s tailbone, he nuzzles, lips parted in a sigh. They close to an open-mouthed kiss against his prefect’s puckered rim, and it is only by resolute willpower that Hannibal resists moaning in time with Anthony Dimmond.

The prefect is feline, stretching to press his chest to the bed, his face turned to watch his headmaster as Will takes his time rimming him. They’ve practiced this together, taking turns in Anthony’s bed, whimpering for the other to stop when they were too close, learning to endure for longer to impress their headmaster when he commands them to play this way.

Will’s endurance is still too short, still too quick to shatter, but Anthony’s… 

Will moans and closes his eyes as he sets his hands to Anthony’s cheeks and spreads them, spearing his tongue to press into him as he hums and closes his lips around his hole again to suck. Anthony coils, belly towards the bed and hips craned high to present himself as he moans, voice lilting high, against the mattress. His fingers splay and curl, kneading against the blankets. His cock jerks upwards towards his stomach with each twist of lips, each spiraling shove of tongue, each breath and click and whimper.

He bears down, and Hannibal watches as Anthony’s stomach flattens to keep his climax at bay. A ripple of movement, begun with a sharply drawn breath out of time with the rest, that carries downward. His cock leaks a clear bead, pulled long towards the bed, but he holds himself back capably.

Remarkable boys.

“You know you needn’t hold back this time,” Hannibal says to them both, watching the way Will drags the back of his hand across his mouth, glistening with spit. It’s a friendly reminder. Amicable. Certainly not laced with challenge threaded snug through every word.

It is Anthony who answers this time, voice drawn tight and rough as he curls his fingers harder in the sheets and meets Hannibal’s eye. “But it’s our pleasure to, headmaster.”

“As you will,” Dr. Lecter allows, a smile gathering beneath his eyes as Will plunges back against Anthony’s opening and brings that beautiful voice to keening.

They’ve been working on this. The skill they show together now is the product of study, of effort to learn and improve, independently undertaken. It is this last that thuds thick in Hannibal’s chest. He has not bid them learn this, nor forced them to. They have discovered and refined of their own accord.

“Add a finger,” Hannibal suggests. After a pause, he amends his direction. “Two. Mr. Dimmond has been without for some time.”

Anthony keens even before they’re added, as Will sits back and catches his breath, bringing two fingers to his lips to suck as he turns to watch Hannibal. He has not been fingered for a while either - he remembers the first time Hannibal had done that to him, how good it had felt, how desperately he wanted it again. He thinks of the hard glass toy that he had taken into his bottom at the headmaster’s behest, and he wants that again too.

He turns back to Anthony as he teases the rim of his hole with the tip of one finger, breathing softly against him to make him shiver and arch and spread. Then he slips one finger in, the other, and bends to obediently thrust his tongue between them.

He spreads his own legs, his cock hard and leaking a dark patch wet against the front of his underpants. He has not touched himself since they started to play - he will leave that for Anthony to do - but he wants Hannibal to see. Squeezing his bottom, he pushes his cock forward to tent out his underwear.

Their headmaster’s hum brings a peal of pleasure rippling through them both.

He closes his book and sets it aside. Folding his glasses as the bed rocks beneath the jilting movements of their bodies, Hannibal ensures that all that he does betrays none of the desire that would otherwise hurry him. As much as they have missed each other, Hannibal has missed them.

He leans forward, crossing his legs rather than keeping his knees upright as before. Hannibal extends a hand to Anthony’s face, turning it towards him, and he slips his thumb between the boy’s lips. Dr. Lecter watches as the prefect’s rosy lips circle obediently to suckle, and then he looks to Will.

“Shall we endeavor to make him weep, in his restraint?”

Will shivers and stretches one leg back, obediently still tonguing and fingering his prefect as Hannibal had told him to, but his eyes say enough. _Yes_ , he narrows them further, _please, yes._

Anthony keens his pleasure and demand, eyes up to his headmaster as well, as he softly commands for Will to remove Anthony’s underwear entirely to allow him full ease of movement to spread his legs. Will keeps his fingers deep in Anthony as he obeys, sitting back to catch his breath and just watch. He seeks for that nub within him that makes Anthony jerk and tense and ease all at once, pushing back against Will’s hand for more.

“He’s so good,” Will whispers, always awed by his friend like this, always seeking to be better, just like him.

“He’s worked very hard to be,” Hannibal agrees. “Haven’t we, Mr. Dimmond?”

The boy nods, humming his assent around Hannibal’s spit-slicked finger. His eyes flutter closed when Will again strokes that spot inside him. His toes curl so hard that his feet lift from the bed. Anthony’s heart aches as intensely as his cock - their kind words mean more to him than any touch, in truth. He draws a breath and presses down hard once more on the floor of his stomach, squeezing until it aches.

He will be good for them. He will make them both proud.

Will knows, in that moment as in many before them when he has seen Anthony show his full potential, reaching his limits and begging to be pushed over them, that he will learn and work just as hard to be this good for Hannibal. One day, he will be.

He bends once more to lick around his fingers before he just presses sloppy loving kisses against Anthony’s ass. He drops his free hand to stroke slowly against Anthony’s cock, gentle so as not to push him over, deliberate enough to get him closer.

“What shall I do, sir?” He asks, not daring to ask if Hannibal will do something to him as he takes their prefect apart.

The prefect’s limbs quiver beyond his control, golden brown from the Spanish sun but for where his little shorts clung to his bottom. Ivory pale against his tan, his muscles have firmed throughout their few months apart. Anthony looks less a boy now than a man burgeoning to adulthood, but to Hannibal’s gaze - when he wraps his fingers under the prefect’s chin and lifts his head upward, thumb pressed between swelling lips - he will always be his boy.

“I think that you should fuck him.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Mr. Dimmond,” Will grins, unable to resist a little snort. “Are you amenable?”_
> 
> _“Christ, yes,” Anthony groans._

Will makes a helpless sound and lets go of Anthony’s cock so he doesn’t accidentally squeeze him too hard and make him come. He has thought about it, often, seeing Anthony bent over, or rimming him as he had just done, or watching his fingers sink deep into his ass and imagining how good it would feel to push his cock in, in their place.

“You have thought about it,” Hannibal points out, amusement warming his tone, as both Will and Anthony nod, in unison. “And you’ve thought about Anthony fucking you.”

Will swallows and nods again, then shakes his head. “Yes, sir, I have but… but not before...” He laughs, blushing dark, and presses his hand to his face, absently licking away the precome that had slicked them. “Can I really?”

“You may,” he says, loosening his thumb from Anthony’s greedy mouth and softly pushing his lips out of shape. “If Mr. Dimmond is amenable.”

“Is he?”

“Ask him.”

“Mr. Dimmond,” Will grins, unable to resist a little snort. “Are you amenable?”

“Christ, yes,” Anthony groans, the sound jerking into a laugh when he’s gently struck across the mouth for his swearing. “Yes, please, and thank you.”

Hannibal’s eyes narrow in approval, and with a soft smile, he removes himself from them and stands. The draw beside his bed slides softly open, and from it, Hannibal removes a tube of lubricant. His steps are slow, languid, compared to Will in his fervor to strip himself of his underwear. As his pants fall to the floor at the foot of the bed, Hannibal’s roundabout circling brings him to the edge of the bed behind Will. His knee bends the mattress beneath, and with a palmful of warmed jelly, Hannibal grasps Will’s stiff little cock from behind.

“Gently,” Hannibal purrs against his ear. “Slowly. As much to delay your own release as to prolong his. Your body will move beyond your behest in time, but for as long as you can stand, pace yourself, Mr. Graham. Do you understand?”

Will whimpers and closes his eyes, submitting immediately to Hannibal’s touches. He arches back against him, bites his lip, and rocks slowly into the tight fist of Hannibal’s hand.

“Yes, headmaster,” he whispers. He understands. Slow. Gentle. Deep. To hold himself back enough to pull Anthony's pleasure from him but try to delay his own. 

“Good boy,” Hannibal praises, easing Will forward from his chest, though reluctantly, and watching over his shoulder as Will begins to align himself.

Hannibal runs his clean hand down to Will’s hip, his other still wrapped around the base of his prick. When he eases Will’s fingers from himself, Will grasps Anthony’s cheeks, not needing to hold his own cock for this with his headmaster’s hand wrapped around it so firmly. He looks up to Hannibal for a moment, only to find wine-dark eyes on his own, and as he looks back down blushing, Dr. Lecter noses against his temple, breathing him in.

Rocking forward against Will, Hannibal guides him to Anthony’s entrance. The headmaster’s breath leaves him a moment before Anthony’s does with a keening whimper, and Will the last to follow, a shocked _oh_ as his cock is consumed by the warm, slick pressure of Anthony’s hole. Its head presses the gathered skin inward, and with a groan from Anthony, disappears inside.

“Touch his back,” Hannibal tells Will. “Remind him to breathe.”

Will is trembling. He has never felt anything so incredible, never something so intimate. The heat of him! The tightness, the squeezing of his muscles! He whispers Anthony's name and reaches to stroke his skin; feeling the gentle little tremors against his hand as he does much, much deeper.

“Breathe,” he whispers. “God, you feel so good but you have to breathe, Anthony -”

His prefect laughs, helpless, and the sound ripples up through Will and right through his prick and he gasps. “Tell me I feel good again.”

“So good,” Will moans, pressing deeper not by his own behest but by that of their headmaster. One hand rests securely on the curve of his bottom; the other clasps his hip. He paces Will, a constant movement inward but slow enough for Anthony to adjust after so long with no more than fingers or toys inside of him.

“Mr. Dimmond,” Hannibal purrs, suddenly. “Do not make me remind you again.”

Anthony takes a dutiful breath, and laughs it loose, rubbing his face against one fisted hand, the bedcover clutched within. “How is it, Will?”

Will makes a sound that, for the moment, is answer enough. It is incredible. It is eye-opening. In a moment of boldness, Will sets his hand atop Hannibal’s where it guides him and encourages him closer. The two of them enjoying Anthony this way.

“I’ve never had anyone else inside me before,” Anthony admits weakly, groaning Will’s name and arching his back in a feline stretch. It occurs to Will just then that perhaps Anthony has never wanted anyone else before, and the fact that he allowed Will this - only Will and their master - makes Will’s chest ache wonderfully.

It feels suddenly much more intimate than before.

Will laughs and ducks his head to watch his cock slip out of Anthony's ass and back in again, stretching the skin of his lovely hole to take him in. It stretches outward too, when he rocks back, as if to grasp and keep him deep. Hannibal rubs his cheek against Will’s as he watches with him, pressing his body against Will’s to bury him deep, leaning away so that Will rests back against him as he withdraws. It’s as if he’s fucking Anthony through Will, and as if Will wasn’t already so overcome as to be breathless, he remembers that soon enough, it will be their headmaster’s cock inside him just like this.

Will trembles, whimpering, but the click of Dr. Lecter’s tongue against his teeth is enough for Will to hold himself at bay. He stops moving. He can feel his pulse in his throat, in his stomach, in his cock throbbing quick inside Anthony’s body. He tries not to think about it but how can he not? It would be like ignoring the crash of waves on a rocky shore as the water lapped against one’s toes. Like ignoring the first spill of hot sunlight after a tenacious rain.

“Feel his pulse,” Hannibal tells Will. “Focus on it, not your own. You can feel it around you, can’t you? Squeezing steady as the coursing of a wild brook.”

“Yes,” Will whispers, bringing up a hand to rub over Anthony’s bottom when his prefect bows his head against his arms and laughs weakly. He squirms, being held open in this way, with Will unmoving inside him. His cock springs in time with his pulse, little nods up towards his belly, but he does not touch it. He folds his hands together to stop from doing so.

And then all at once the heat against Will’s back is gone, with a purr drawn nuzzling up into his hair and a kiss touched to his curls. Their headmaster slips away, to sit as he did when they found him, and watch his two boys at play. His smile spreads, crackling like the embers that will become a consuming wildfire.

“Now,” he says, “move as you like.”

Anthony curses softly and arches back, encouraging Will deeper into him. Will finds that without the guiding hand of his headmaster he cannot move slowly - not with something like this. He hushes Anthony and sets his hands to his hips, giving him that deep slow push he aches for.

The prefect melts against the bed in pleasure, panting and whimpering and slipping his hand between his legs as Will finally lets go and begins to fuck him. It is clumsy and unpracticed, nothing like Hannibal’s determined and deliberate aim, nothing like his deliberation in whether to allow his boy release or to keep him on edge.

This is different. 

Anthony loves this.

He loves them both.

“Harder,” he breathes, eyes on Hannibal and a grin on his face as he reaches across the bed towards him. “Harder, Will, please.”

Will couldn’t deny Anthony if he tried, and so he doesn’t bother. He lets his body move as it demands of him, in a way that feels natural - instinctive - to thrust into clutching heat and wet warmth, to draw from Anthony a plaintive jerking moan as the bed rocks beneath them. Will’s balls bounce against Anthony’s own, his hips smack the plush curve of his ass and his nails bend crescents into Anthony’s waist.

Hannibal gathers Anthony’s fingers in his own, holding him firm to ground his good boy as Anthony staves back the orgasm pushing higher and higher with every clap of skin and every jagged thrust that impales him. His master praises him, soft-spoken words but overlying a firm expectation, like velvet encased around an iron glove. Anthony is doing well. Dr. Lecter knows he can hold off. Dr. Lecter knows he can wait and he will make it worth Mr. Dimmond’s while if he does.

He tells him he is good.

He tells him he is beautiful.

He lifts his eyes to Will, a smile creasing their corners, and with Anthony’s hand still clasped in one hand, Hannibal reaches for Will with the other. He fists his fingers in his hair, gathering up the fine curls at the base of his skull, and with tug that tilts Will’s head back and parts his lips with a gasp, Dr. Lecter bends their mouths roughly together.

The boys moan in tandem - Will for feeling his headmaster so close to him, Anthony for the fact that Will’s cock strikes against his prostate with astounding accuracy - and melt against each other. Will’s body feels charged, over-sensitive, not his own for how damn good everything feels. He reaches with a weak and trembling hand to curl around Hannibal to keep him near, opening entirely to his kisses, surrendering to the tug of his hair and the growls that pulse against his lips when he’s permitted to breathe.

Anthony stretches long beneath them, barely able to hold himself back, and when Hannibal slips his fingers from Anthony’s and lays his hand heavy and hot against his back, the prefect comes with a whimper and sweet little sobs against the sheets. It sets off a chain reaction. His waves of pleasure tug his body tight, clenching firm around Will’s cock. Will bucks against the compounding pleasure and drives harder against the sensitive spot inside his friend. Anthony’s voice cracks, lilting high, and Will breaks from their headmaster’s lips with a moan.

When he comes, it is not with a bang, but with a whimper; a near-silent gasp peaked with the tilt of voice. Will lets go of Hannibal when he lets loose of his own restraint. He holds Anthony by his waist and digs his knees into the bed to push further inside him, even if only a miniscule amount more. Shuddering pulsing waves of pleasure, Will bends across Anthony’s back and spills his breath in panting gasps between his shoulders.

Anthony laughs, helpless, and Will wraps his arms around his friend’s middle, bent across him and breathless. Wave after twitching wave fills him up, as if it’s been weeks since he’s been allowed to come rather than only days. Just when he thinks his last burst has jerked free, another tugs his balls up tight and swells his cock, until Will, too, is laughing.

When Hannibal lets Will go, both boys slip to the bed like puppies, pliant and spent and lovely. Anthony squirms free of Will’s cock and turns in his arms to pull him near, nuzzling and cuddling and kissing him with soft, fleeting little things. His eyes are wet, sweet boy. He had wept the first time Hannibal had him.

Will comes back to himself faster than Anthony, the prefect still shivering and squirming in his delight, overcome by the pleasure of being allowed to come for the first time in aching weeks. Reaching back, will seeks for Hannibal with sleepy clutching fingers, humming lazily and smiling when his fingers are taken and kissed.

“Thank you, sir,” he tells him. “From us both. Did you enjoy it?”

Their headmaster’s smile is that subtle thing reserved only for them - a pinch of creases beside his eyes, a lift of the muscle beneath. A secret smile that no other student can discern from the somber man who oversees their school, but they can feel as brightly as if it were the sun.

“It was very generous of you both to share with me,” he says, his arousal tucked between his thighs so as not to allow it to be seen. He will tend to it in his own time, or perhaps not. Perhaps he will simply allow it to remain until it softens of its own reluctant accord, and he can savor the bruised ache that will bloom in his belly as it does. “Thank you, Mr. Dimmond. Thank you, Mr. Graham.”

Will grins and murmurs - against Anthony’s cheek - that he’s welcome, wrapped all around his prefect in a sticky mess of tangled limbs. Anthony keeps one arm around him, the other hand still clasped with their headmaster’s own. His eyes ask a question all too easily read, and Hannibal softly - once - shakes his head.

“Another night, Mr. Dimmond,” he says, despite how sincerely he would enjoy these two boys sleeping like puppies at the foot of his bed. “Return to your room with Mr. Graham. Enjoy the other’s company, for now.”

Anthony makes a soft sound, but he doesn’t beg again, closing his eyes in pleasure as Will strokes and soothes his hands up and down his back. He murmurs something to the boy and Will nods, extricating himself from heavy limbs to climb from the bed and stand in just his shirt and socks at the foot of it. He gives Hannibal another look, cheeks beautifully flushed, and brings his thumb to the side of his mouth to gently chew the nail before he bids him good night.

As Will makes his way to the door, he can hear the shift of sheets and bodies on the bed behind him, the telltale click of lips to lips as Anthony gets his reward for being so good. There is still that flare, gentle but undying, of jealousy that Will tamps down as soon as he feels it burn his chest.

This is for them both. This is for Hannibal, and them together. Neither usurps the other, they belong to everyone, all three.

Will makes his way to the bedroom by himself, stumbling a little and laughing as he does, one sock slipping down his leg.

He tells himself as he goes that this time should be enjoyed, sharing each other three ways. It will not last forever. There will come a time - soon, too soon - when Anthony goes away to university, and all the punishment and pleasure and cruelties and kisses will be for Will. It’s too easy for Will to imagine how Anthony must feel, at the cusp of such a change, for him to resent the special affections that their headmaster shares with his prefect. He will have his time, but for now this time is theirs.

And when Anthony bangs down the floorboards behind him and grabs Will up by the waist, dragging him laughing towards the bedroom, Will resolves to stomp out that jealousy for good.

They are meant to enjoy this summer together, their first and last as they are.

Will won’t waste a moment of it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We are allowed to go into the study,” Anthony muses after a moment._
> 
> _“And he has left no other instructions for us on how to spend our day,” Will adds, feeling his giddiness and dizziness rise to a wonderful peak._
> 
> _Anthony bites his bottom lip, shaking his head at Will even as his smile widens. It’s awful of them, to spur each other on to misbehavior like this. They will pay for it with such an intensity of punishment that both will regret all that they’re doing in this moment._

Will is delighted to discover that Hannibal’s property houses - among other things - a lake with graceful black swans. Anthony had pointed it out from their window one morning, stretching against the windowsill, and he laughed when Will immediately suggested they visit it.

With no instructions given them in the morning by their master, and nothing but a note left in the kitchen encouraging them to enjoy whatever they wish for breakfast in his absence, the boys packed some food into a basket and headed towards the lake. Now, hours later and drowsy on warm summer breezes and just a little bit of sweet wine, Will nuzzles closer against his prefect and lets his eyes settle in the middle distance.

“Where does he go?” He asks, smiling when he feels Anthony shrug beneath him.

“I suppose he has enough business to take care of, genuinely, to leave us here,” is all he says. “I’ve never asked him where he goes. It’s never seemed pertinent.”

“As long as he comes back.”

“He always comes back,” Anthony assures him with a laugh, stroking a hand through Will’s hair, tugging the little tangles from it with gentle patience. “The best thing, is that he comes back missing us terribly. It’s rare that I won’t be called to his bedroom after he returns from a day away.”

“Do you think he will mind that we took the wine?” Will asks, sheepish. It had been his idea.

Anthony sucks the warmth of it from his bottom lip, holding it there for a moment, and releasing it with a smile. “He might. He makes it himself, you know - this kind. We went to the woods last summer to pick strawberries, and he said he’d make wine from them. I could tell him that makes it half mine.”

“Don’t,” laughs Will, eyes wide. “Don’t say that.”

“Are you worried for me, Graham?”

“No, I just…” Will rolls to his back, letting the sun warm his chest and linen-pale limbs, and give rise to freckles prickling heat across his cheeks. His smile spreads to a grin, and then a snorting laugh. “If you do that, he’ll only beat you.”

“I didn’t say I’d tell him I’m the one who took it,” Anthony answers, aghast. “You’re not getting off that easy, thief.”

“Good,” Will laughs. “I would hate for you to take all the credit.” He stretches and reaches out to get the bottle again, not much left in the bottom of it now. In truth, they had deliberately taken one that wasn’t full to begin with, to not incur genuine rage from their master should it have been a coveted bottle. Will turns it in his hands a few times and then lifts it to his lips to take another sip, humming and turning away as Anthony seeks to take it from him.

“You’ve had quite enough, Mr. Dimmond,” he tells him, sucking the stray drops from his lips as the prefect takes the bottle next and sits up to drink it. “One of us should remain partially sober.”

“Not it,” Anthony declares, swallowing down a mouthful and sighing hard once it’s down. He rests his arms across his knees, grass springing up bright between his bare toes. Will can see on his jaw the shadow of hair coming in, late along in the day as it is. He doesn’t look nearly so much like a boy as he did at school, though he’s always seemed damn near to adult to Will’s eyes. But he can see it clearly now, with his skin bronzing in the sun, how his muscles have formed seemingly overnight, before hidden by uniforms and shadowy hallways.

Will reaches for the bottle, and Anthony holds it far outside his grasp.

“As your prefect, I declare that it is, in fact, _you_ who have had enough, Graham. I declare, in equal measure, that you are a grabby shit.”

Will feigns a gasp, eyes wide. Anthony’s grin narrows his own.

“Such language is unbecoming for a prefect,” Will reminds him. “There is to be no swearing on these grounds, and I feel it is my duty as a good boy to tell the headmaster you used such an unfortunate word around me.”

He reaches for the bottle again, laughing as Anthony holds it back further still, and when he lunges for it, the older boy curses again, trying to keep it from spilling.

“‘As a good boy’,” Anthony mimics, laughing. “You’re anything but. You’re a miscreant. Unmanageable. Rotten to the core. You are very, _very_ naughty and you may not have - no!”

He scrambles, then, as Will makes a lunge for the wine. Digging up clods of grass and damp earth beneath his bare feet, Anthony levers himself away on his elbows, sloshing the strawberry wine as he turns to his stomach and tries to stand. Will snares him by the ankle and Anthony takes a hard knee.

“Anyway! The headmaster isn’t home and I’m next most in charge, and also far closer to being an adult than you. When I say you are a shit, you are. You are a shit, Will Graham, now let go of my ankle,” he laughs.

“I shan’t,” Will replies, petulant. “You’re abusing your power, being as you are, and you need to share.”

“Will you truly tell on me like a little boy?”

“I am younger than you,” Will reminds him, shifting to keep his hold on Anthony’s ankle as he presses himself to the grass behind him. “It would be in my nature, wouldn’t it?” He grins. “Will you truly drink all the wine without sharing?”

“You’ve had more than half the bottle already!”

“There wasn’t even half the bottle when we started it,” Will reminds him, laughing. He’s lightheaded and giddy, delighted to be just a boy in a place like this, with his best friend who gets to enjoy summer with him instead of somewhere in Spain with his parents. “Should I tell on you for being a liar too?”

“It will be your word against mine. Who am I to say that you, whose idea this was, did not consume half of it in its entirety before I even got a sip?”

“You were there!”

“Was I? My memory is foggy,” Anthony grins, before he jerks his ankle free and stumbles forward. Will laughs, splayed against the grass, before giving chase.

Anthony turns on him, running backwards. He tries to take a drink and sputters, laughing, as he swallows what he can and the wine spills across his chin and down his bare chest, spotting his trousers. He turns to run forward, faster, but the smack of Will’s feet against the earth behind him are coming up quick.

“The point was that he wouldn’t know!” Will exclaims.

“The point is that we can do whatever we like,” Anthony corrects him, before unleashing a particularly foul curse as he stumbles and falls, startling the honking swans off into the water.

Will catches up to him and immediately crawls atop, stealing the bottle with a shout of triumph. He straddles his fallen friend and takes a deliberately long drink, pressing his wrist against his lips after as he swallows down the burn of it.

“We will run ragged this summer,” he declares. “Forget all we learned about poise and tact and posture.”

“And he will have to teach it all to us all over again,” Anthony laments, sighing, before reaching up to grab against Will again and press his fingers against his ribs in a brutal tickle. Will shrieks and the bottle changes hands once more, and Will finds himself on his back instead. Anthony winks, sets a knee to the ground and stands without the use of his hands, stepping over Will proudly as he continues on towards the house.

“If we can do anything,” Will calls, voice carrying over the vast grounds. “Does that mean I can fuck you again?”

It’s a dastardly maneuver, and stops Anthony mid-stride, staggering him. He rights himself on the next step and smooths a hand down his bare chest, as if straightening a tie that he isn’t wearing. With a toss of his wiry, dark hair, he looks back to Will over his shoulder, and arches a brow.

“Maybe I’ll fuck you first,” he snorts.

Will’s eyes widen and his lips part slack, and he scrambles up from the ground to catch up to Anthony and stand before him. He is still shorter, but not by much. He’s grown too.

“You wouldn’t dare,” he points out.

“I caned you,” Anthony reminds him, taking another casual sip from the bottle.

“And he punished you terribly for it,” Will grins. “My virginity is his alone, he would skin you alive.”

Anthony shivers at the words, eyes hooded in pleasure at the thought and in challenge to Will. “Do you think?”

A quick punch in the arm dissuades him of the idea and Anthony laughs, grimacing as he clutches his arm, now tingling numb. He shoves the bottle at Will and grasps him by the back of the head, dragging the boy close. His other hand shoves back his hair so he can press a wine-sticky kiss to his brow.

“Do you want to fuck me again?” Anthony asks, his tone softer and rougher all at once.

Will bites his lip and keeps his eyes on Anthony’s. He smells of wine and clean sweat and grass. He feels so warm from the sun, strong beneath his smooth skin. Will smiles a little wider and nods.

“Yeah,” he admits, blushing. He still wakes at night, hard, next to Anthony and thinks of how he had felt clenching around him, hot and tight and wonderful. He tries to put himself in Anthony’s position and finds that is when he has to curl his hand hard around his little cock and talk himself down.

“I would let you,” Anthony purrs, as tempting as the hiss of the cane dragged across the desk, as promising as the light shining from the solid little bulbs that get placed inside their bottoms. “Turn me against the wall and push my shorts down. Rub up against me until you’re hard.”

Will parts his lips to speak, brow furrowed, but his breath emerges as no more than a soft moan puffed against Anthony’s bare chest.

“It wouldn’t take much, would it,” Anthony whispers, his breath stirring Will’s sun-warmed curls. “A few quick thrusts, rough ones, with just your spit on your prick to ease the way. And then I could wander dripping with wine and come into the headmaster’s study to wait for his return. You should see how limber the switches are that he keeps at home…”

Will’s moan is entirely audible now, and he leans nearer to press his lips to Anthony’s chest, tasting sweat and heartbeat. He wants to, God he wants to so badly, just like Anthony had said. He wants to turn him around and press close, whisper filthy things into his prefect’s ear as he bares him and slips his hand between his legs, as he rubs against him and promises that he will have him full and stretched… he wants to play dominant, just this once, and have Anthony walk through the house naked after, thighs filthy and bottom pink, to Hannibal’s study to wait for him.

He wants to.

He aches for it.

Instead, he brings the bottle to his lips again and takes another long drink, eyes closed and mouth stretched around the lip of it. With a little sound he lowers it again and lifts his eyes to look at Anthony again, mischief bright in them.

“Why wander there when we can just do it in the study?” He says. “You sitting astride me in his chair.”

This catches Anthony’s breath short. It snares, clutched in his throat, with a gasp. His mouth dries. There is something in the boy’s look at that moment that pinks Anthony’s cheeks - a look so very much like the one their headmaster shows them, when no is no longer an option.

Prefect, older, more experienced - none of it matters. Anthony licks his lips apart, last summer’s strawberries sweet against his tongue. He nods, seeking between Will’s eyes, and then shakes his head, and then nods again with a helpless laugh.

“He’d tan us for it,” he whispers. “Strip the skin from our bottoms with his birches or his cane.”

“Or put us in that awful little cage,” Will adds, thinking back to Anthony’s stories, whispered between them in their tiny cot at school, of what the headmaster had done or what he could do, depending on his mood or their level of disobedience. He smiles wider and offers Anthony the bottle again, just the dregs left now for them to share.

“He’ll do both, fuck,” Anthony laughs, taking the bottle and downing the contents in one. He sucks his lips thoughtfully, taking in the last of the taste of it, before letting his gaze settle on Will before him. He has not been here before, he does not know the house rules. They are freer here than at school, but the rules are enforced with harsh deliberation - there is nothing stopping Hannibal whipping them raw, if he so wished and they so deserved, and both boys know it.

“We are allowed to go into the study,” Anthony muses after a moment.

“And he has left no other instructions for us on how to spend our day,” Will adds, feeling his giddiness and dizziness rise to a wonderful peak.

Anthony bites his bottom lip, shaking his head at Will even as his smile widens. It’s awful of them, to spur each other on to misbehavior like this. They will pay for it with such an intensity of punishment that both will regret all that they’re doing in this moment.

And then they will lay together again, and treat the other’s weals, and as their thighs and bottoms and bellies heal, they’ll giggle together again over what they’ve done, and how hard it made them come.

“Come on,” Anthony whispers, grabbing Will by the hand with such force that he drops the bottle, forgotten into the grass.

The house still stands immense before them both, but now Will knows some of the twists and turns of it, some of the longer passages and where they lead. It is a labyrinth, but one he enjoys walking, not one in which he fears getting lost.

The study is on the second floor, and it overlooks the lake. Anthony had shown it to him only briefly when they toured the house on their first day, but it had left an impression even then. The room is like the library that shares the same floor, but it is wider, panelled in dark red wood and tiled with heavy pale travertine. There is a mezzanine that runs the perimeter of three of the walls and two ladders that can be used to reach it. There, Hannibal keeps his most precious books. Even Anthony, favored and adored, is not permitted up there.

That rule, at least, neither have any inclination to break today.

Anthony leads Will in and stops in the doorway, slipping their fingers together and squeezing tight. They’re in their shorts and nothing more, lazy from a day in the sun and the warm shadows of the willows by the lake, lax from the heady wine that warms their blood. He swallows and turns a glance towards Will, and with a grin, the younger boy lets him go. He strides into the room, feet clicking against the marble, and sets a hand to the back of the large leather chair that stands behind the mahogany table.

With a nervous laugh and a shake of his head, Will steels himself, and when he tilts his chin he wears a look not unlike the one Anthony had worn the first time he had brought Will to the commons to be caned.

“Come here,” he says.

It has been so long since Anthony has been truly, deliberately, _flagrantly_ disobedient. The lessons finally seemed to sink in that he prefers to be treated only a little harshly, and mostly coddled and praised. He has worked against his own nature to improve himself to the headmaster’s preferences, and broken bad habits one after the other. His furious, angry rebellion - that drove him to illicit smoking, and stealing, cursing and lewd songs and spitting - was trained out of him by firm hands and an unrelenting faith that he could be better than the hooligans over which he’d laid his tenuous boyhood claim.

But the promise now of being bad again swells in him intensely. It is not a defiance that stems from anger, frustration, rage at the world and his place in it. It is a defiance out of joy, youthful and bright, and Anthony aches in his heart now as badly as his bottom assuredly will later to experience this with his friend.

This is his last summer before adulthood comes crashing down upon him.

Why shouldn’t he enjoy the waning warmth of his youth?

And so with a sleek smile, Anthony steps forward, head ducked but eyes raised. He lets this wicked boy command him to come closer, and he waits, expectantly beside him.

Will finds he needs both hands to pull the chair out. It doesn’t creak but its weight and make suggests it is older than he is. With a whispered laugh, he sits himself right into the middle of it, the seat deep enough that his feet are off the floor. He looks at Anthony and gives him another grin.

He can see the hesitation, but he knows his friend. He knows when such pauses mean his own personal pensiveness, and when he truly means for Will to listen. Will has no doubt they will suffer for this, but he can see from how Anthony regards him that it will not bring about their master’s true wrath.

Biting his lip, Will sets one elbow to the arm of the chair and his chin atop his curled fingers, and with his other hand gestures at Anthony’s shorts.

“Off,” he says.

“You still have yours -”

“Don’t sass,” Will scolds him, and Anthony grins, snorting a laugh as he unbuttons his shorts. They slip down his narrow hips, nothing beneath, and he lets them drop to the floor around his ankles. For a moment, Anthony stands bare before him, insolent in the jut of his chin and the cant of his head, but entirely too amused. “Now,” Will says, “mine.”

Anthony steps nearer, brow lifted. He obeys, but not with the submission that Will has seen snap his spine rigid and widen his pupils in an instant on the headmaster’s behest. Still, with that narrow smile in his eyes, Anthony kneels before Will and works his shorts loose, cursing with a laugh when Will wiggles against his attempts to free the fabric from beneath his bottom.

Finally, having worked Will bare, Anthony leans in to give him a long teasing suck, which is met with a yelp and a shove against his shoulders to back off. Both boys grin at each other and Will sets his fingers beneath Anthony’s chin.

“Do you want to?” He asks him softly, prepared to call the entire endeavor quits if his friend finds this too huge a misstep.

“Suck you?”

“Not only that.”

“Put your cock in my ass?”

“Not only that,” Will says with another laugh.

Anthony hums, as if feigning thought, and ducks his head enough to bring Will’s thumb between his lips, sucking pensively. His cheeks hollow and his tongue bends against the pad of his friend’s finger. His eyes hood and slowly, so slowly, he sucks free with a _pop_.

“Do I want to fuck myself on you until we both come, in our headmaster’s chair, after we’ve just stolen his wine? Do I want to do those things, with you, knowing that he’ll cane us for it, that he’ll cage us for it, that for the next week entire our lives will be a litany of aches and welts and bruises and blue balls?”

Will draws a breath so sharply it’s as if he’s been struck. He blinks, eyes wide. No words come forth, but he nods. Anthony bites his bottom lip, and nods far more eagerly.

“I do,” he laughs. “I really do. With you, yes, but only with you.”

Will laughs and shakes his head, pressing his hands to his face so he’s just looking through his fingers at his friend. Then he brings one hand down to his lap and pats it, grinning when Anthony’s eyes narrow and he slinks up Will’s body to straddle him, pulling Will’s hands away to kiss him square on the mouth.

“He’s gonna be so angry,” Will whispers.

Anthony just nods. “He’ll love it,” he says, nipping Will’s bottom lip between his teeth as he rocks down against him, their stiffening pricks stroking together. “Don’t you see? He needs us to be bad as much as we need him to correct us. The same way that we get hard when he whips us, or scolds us, or punishes us at all - the same way you knew when he first spanked you, the same way I knew… he likes it just as much.”

Will moans softly as Anthony works his body up and down, little thrusts driving them together, over and over. He dips a hand between their bodies and squeezes their cocks in the firm grip of his fist. Soft kisses stroke down Will’s throat to his pulse.

“He will be furious,” Anthony promises, “and he will love us for it.”

Will shivers and arches his neck for Anthony to nuzzle against it more, he laughs when the older boy sinks his teeth against his pulse and sucks hard, leaving a bruise. Hannibal had granted them that permission earlier in the previous term, to leave marks on each other with teeth and nails and lips.

Not implements, though, and not toys.

Those were Hannibal’s marks to make on his boys.

“Are you sure just spit will be enough?” Will mumbles, already sinking to that almost sleepy place he goes when he and Anthony play together. “Won’t it hurt?” The first time he had taken the plug it had hurt, it had been just his spit then.

“Yes,” Anthony says, without reservation and without rancor. “It will sting, and feel as if I’m being torn asunder. I will ache from it for days and relish every time that I bend, or sit, or stretch the wrong way and still feel as if you’re in me.”

Will’s breath lilts high, a whimpered moan passing his lips and caught by Anthony’s own in a smoldering kiss. They part softly, and Anthony turns his head aside to spit into his hand. He reaches between his legs, smearing himself with it. The next dollop is stroked hot and slick along Will’s cock. And all the while Anthony holds his gaze, their brows pressed, lips nearly touching. Their smiles widen into laughter, squeezed into a kiss as Anthony arches upward and lets go of Will’s cock, laying hands to his shoulders instead.

“Put it in me,” he asks him, nuzzling alongside his friend’s nose.

Will makes a sound, little and pleased, and ducks his head just enough to grasp his cock and guide it to Anthony’s hole. He teases there, rubbing between his cheeks until they are both breathless and laughing, the wine darkening both their cheeks and lips, sweetening their breath as it mingles. Then, without more warning than Will’s teeth clasping his lip, he breaches Anthony, and lets his eyes roll closed.

It feels just as incredible as the first time, but this position has Will’s body responding in a different way. He can feel the length of Anthony against him, every shudder and shiver and whimper and gasp. It brings Will closer and harder than it did the first time, even when Hannibal was watching.

He imagines, now, Hannibal walking in on his boys like this, tangled in illicit intimacy in his private study. He imagines the purring tone and the deep rumble of warning beneath - he imagines the way Hannibal’s eyes would narrow not in a smile but in threat and delight in knowing his boys are about to learn at his hand. He imagines and finds himself unable to do much but rut up against Anthony as he slowly sinks lower against him.

Anthony’s body relaxes as if it were meant to be used this way, not clenching the way that Will still does when he’s penetrated, but relaxing in time with every breath and heartbeat. His head tilts back, fingers gripping firm to Will’s shoulders. Bottom lip pinched between his teeth, Anthony’s eyes flutter closed as he sinks down to take Will entirely inside him.

The pressure is just as he described to Will, a tearing friction that seems all wrong but for how right Anthony knows it to be. He feels full with Will in him - not filled to bursting as with Hannibal - but full enough that his cock responds with beads of clear slick dropping free and a hammering heart. Will’s lips press to Anthony’s chest and the sudden warmth startles a laugh from the prefect, who clutches him close with arms around his neck.

Their headmaster’s chair squeaks when Anthony rises a little and sinks again, the leather creaking beneath their bare bodies. Anthony wedges his knees in alongside Will’s hips, between his legs and the arms of the chair, and lacing his fingers at the back of Will’s neck Anthony leans back as far as he can over their headmaster’s desk, dragging Will’s mouth against his chest.

With their pulses rushing in their ears, they do not hear the footsteps approach.

With the rocking of the chair, they do not hear the click of the door. 

With their pitched moans fluttering upward from between them, they do not hear their headmaster enter and come to a stop to regard them both.

But when Anthony opens his eyes, he sees him there, upside down, and with no control over himself, he laughs. His fingers clench against Will’s neck. He pulls his hair until Will lifts his lips from Anthony’s nipple, and raises his eyes.

Hannibal’s expression is one of genuine surprise, one that suggests that in truth, in any possible outcome of his day, he did not expect to see his two terrible boys fucking in his study. For a moment, Will’s heart skips a beat and all he can feel is shock, then pleasure, then giddy delight. And when Hannibal says his name, just quiet enough to hear, just low enough be so incredibly dangerous, Will feels his body convulse, and his cock release hot within Anthony.

He keeps his eyes on Hannibal the entire time, pupils blown and cheeks hot. He can see the shadows of emotions slip across his headmaster’s face, from surprise to displeasure, to pride, to that deep, dangerous, caramel-thick delight. Will’s cock pulses one last time, and he pants out a whimper against Anthony’s chest, hiding against him so he doesn’t laugh out loud and get them into any more trouble.

But he can’t help it. As soon as his forehead touches the pounding beat of Anthony’s heart against his ribs he giggles. He’s never been so nervous, nor so excited in his entire life.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _How desperately they must have craved their headmaster’s firm hand painting colors against their skin to have behaved so very, very badly._
> 
> _It would not due to deny them, then, what they are owed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be more Corporal Punishment to come, but we're on a bit of a hiatus right now, so pardon the delays!
> 
> Much love to our darling Amelita who sat in with us while we wrote this chapter, and offered fantastic feedback throughout! <3

The headmaster needs not hear the confession in Graham’s snorting, boyish laughter. He needs not see the sinuous smile of the prefect, expression akin to the cat that got the cream. He needs, in fact, do no more than softly inhale - catching the musky spill of seed seeping against flushed skin, and dripping down to treated leather - to know precisely what has happened.

It is not the sight of these two awful boys conjoined in his chair that pinches a crease between his brows. He would expect no less. No, what puzzles him is the scent of strawberries, lingering on their skin.

“You’ve been in my wine,” the headmaster observes, the low bass thrum of his words mirrored in warning by fingers flexing slowly to a fist at his side.

Anthony straightens up from his position, pressing his lips to Will’s forehead and whispering things Will can’t quite make out. He isn’t listening. He wouldn’t even hear him if he was - his blood hums so loudly in his head he can barely hear himself think. There is just a pulsing and low warning that comes from the same place in which instinct screams he run, not stay.

He ignores it.

That voice has no place here.

“Mr. Dimmond was telling me of the strawberries of last summer,” Will manages after a moment, wrapping his hands around Anthony’s waist to hold him still. “I asked only if there was something I could try, to taste such pleasure too.”

“Whom did you ask?”

The question is not yet the snap of cane singing sharp, but the press of firm hands to warm trembling skin to taut stillness in preparation.

“Anthony, sir.”

Dr. Lecter hums, seemingly serene, but his steady footfalls towards the two boys still bound bare together seem to echo up their bodies. Each one resonates. Each one echoes to the quivering hollows of their bodies that coil in unconscious undulations of anticipation towards the other.

By the time he is at their side, they are breathless. Hairless chests rising and falling far harder than even in their few moments of furious rutting, their grins wide and blushes dark. Hannibal’s attention comes to rest on Anthony’s cock, still stiff but leaking bead after blossoming bead of clear slick that rivulets down his belly.

“Very good, Mr. Dimmond.”

The chair spins as Anthony is snared by his hair and dragged from it, bottom smacking to the floor as he groans, laughing wildly. He grasps Hannibal’s wrist with both hands as he’s tugged stumbling to his feet, come slicking his thighs, his mirth and terror rapturously intertwined. Will starts to stand but no more than twitches a muscle before the headmaster’s eyes pin him to the seat.

“Stay.”

Will stays, hands gripping hard the arms of the chair as he watches with wide eyes his prefect and his headmaster. Anthony straightens his shoulders, he straightens his back, he assumes the position that they both know so well to stand before their mentor and teacher. The fact that he is filthy with come and sweat is irrelevant.

Poise in all situations, in any circumstance.

Will draws his knees up and wraps his arms around them and bites his lip, letting his eyes flick between the two of them. Anthony moans, lower lip pinned between his teeth, as he’s bent across the desk. Hannibal’s shoe no sooner touches the inside of his ankle than the prefect spreads his legs wide. He lets the silken, sweat-damp curls slip from his fingers and with cheek turned against the desk and breath pooling great, with hands flat, Anthony remains where he has been placed.

“Clean up your mess, Mr. Graham. It would not do to sully my cane with your filth.”

Will’s breath comes with a shudder, his entire body tensing in response not only to the words and their meaning, but the tone, the implication behind it. He can already feel his mind clouding in that pleasurable smoke that overtakes him when his headmaster is near. He does not hesitate to obey, but he takes his time carefully climbing from the seat. His skin sticks to it, his breath catches with the click when his thighs finally let go of the leather and peel free of it, allowing Will to stand unhindered.

Before him, Anthony is still beautifully hard, bottom pink, thighs slick and warmly tanned. Will’s eyes follow a drop of his own release all the way down to the curve of one of his calves before he takes a step nearer and sinks to his knees.

Blue eyes lift to those that could be red, with the way the light falls, and Will bends forward to set his hands to the floor and bring his lips to the bulb of the drop he had so scrutinized. He sucks - half a kiss, half a tease - before spreading his tongue flat and arching his back as he starts to lick his friend clean of the mess he made of him.

Anthony’s downy leg hair sticks to his tongue, gathering between his lips when he closes them against his prefect’s calf. Will nuzzles upward, suckling in little kisses along the salty line drawn shining down his leg. The first thick dollop startles him, salty-sharp and still hot, pumped from his body into that of his friend.

The noise of his lips bent greedily to suck down his own seed pulls a shiver through Hannibal’s spine, straightening his back and spreading his shoulders, lifting his chin as he transfers a sound of pleasure into a low hum of warning instead.

He hasn’t all day, of course, not with two pups in need of punishment.

“Let thoroughness not cause you to idle,” purrs their headmaster, as he curls a fist in Will’s wild curls and bends him forward, pressing his head firmly between Anthony’s cheeks. The prefect moans, and Hannibal brings his free hand sharply across the boy’s bottom. The clap of skin against skin echoes and Will can feel its reverberation in his belly, as his exhausted cock tries to muster attention to this and results in only an ache.

He has tasted himself many times, from Hannibal’s fingers, from Anthony’s. He isn’t as bitter as the prefect, and he misses that tang against the back of his throat. Will closes his eyes and tries to find a rhythm to his activity, but with no give to move back or forth, he finds that all he can do is draw his tongue obediently over and over Anthony’s trembling hole.

Another sharp smack has both boys moaning, and Will lifts his hands to set to Anthony’s thighs to hold them both steady.

“Down, William,” the headmaster warns him softly. Will obeys without hesitation, and he tries to turn his head to do better, to reach further, but finds that that option is not open to him either. He pulls a breath heavy with Anthony’s scent into his lungs and closes his eyes with a hum when his face is pressed further against the boy before him.

Anthony pushes to his toes, spreads his legs wider to accommodate, whimpering his pleasure, trying to concentrate as much on Will’s tongue as on his own cock that twitches so close to release against the bottom of the desk. Will makes another sound against him and parts his lips wider, seeking an outlet for breath to continue being good, and not finding one.

Hannibal holds him firm, his pretty face buried against Anthony’s ass. His face is reddening, beyond his cheeks, down his throat and spilling like so much strawberry wine down to his shoulders. How desperately they must have craved their headmaster’s firm hand painting colors against their skin to have behaved so very, very badly.

It would not due to deny them, then, what they are owed.

Will’s breath quickens, gasping quick past his nose, each breath enough to keep him conscious but not enough to ease the primal fear of suffocation that begins to grip him. Hannibal watches it take place, as Will jerks his head a little, as he lifts his hands and forces them low, as his fingers clench to fists and his eyes suddenly alight, glistening damp and pleading. He makes a sound, that elicits a roiling tremor through Dimmond. But it is on his second whimper that Hannibal realizes the boy would as soon let himself faint as attempt escape again.

A bend of his wrist snaps Will backwards, spilling him to the floor. He sucks down a rattling breath, chest heaving and face smeared with spit and semen, lips swollen scarlet. Hannibal strikes him so hard he turns Will’s head aside with it, dizzying him to the floor, hands lifting just in time to catch himself. Unseen by Graham, Hannibal’s eyes narrow in a smile as the boy sobs, laughing.

“I will deal with you in a moment, William. Mr. Dimmond,” he intones, raising a hand to stroke down Anthony’s spine, fingers tracing the cleft of his ass and corkscrewing slowly inward. “What have you to say for yourself?”

The prefect presses himself further against the desk and parts his lips, soundless, as he arches his hips for the headmaster’s hand. Will could watch him submit for hours. He has, in fact, done so before. It is incredible the transformation from the perfect, cocky, clever boy to something so wonderfully tame. He is extraordinary. He is beautiful.

“I’ve missed you, sir,” he says at last. “We both have. And while I am responsible, and proudly so, of sharing the exceptional wine you taught me to make with you last summer, it was Mr. Graham who suggested we welcome you in your office.” He laughs, just a brief thing. “And I am proud of that too.” His cock twitches and presses the head against the smooth underside of the table again, stretching a thin line of slick between it and the wood before it snaps.

Hannibal curls his fingers as he draws them back, hooking them against the firm, throbbing nub inside the prefect. Anthony jolts to his toes, legs snapping firm enough that they quiver. His fingers press against the desk until their tips whiten.

“Perhaps it is not only William, then, who will take the cage to learn humility,” the headmaster considers. Anthony hums a low, aching sound that edges close to genuine displeasure, though for all his strain it may simply be a sound to stabilize himself against the orgasm knotting tight in the pit of his belly.

Will watches, wide-eyed, how dark the veins pulse along the underside of Anthony’s cock, bent downward against the desk drawer. He wants to lick it, catch every thick drop stretching towards the floor. He wants to crawl close and sprawl himself at his headmaster’s feet.

The cage. Anthony has told him about it, but never has Will misbehaved enough to earn it. Unseen where he waits on the floor, he slips a hand between his legs and squeezes, as if to bring life back into his cock and truly savor the thought of it.

Anthony’s whimper brings Will’s attention back to them. Dr. Lecter regards his fingers, made slick from Will’s disallowed orgasm, and his nose wrinkles a little. Without looking away from Anthony, Hannibal holds his hand down to Will, fingers extended.

His meaning could not be more clear.

Will slips to his side, then to his knees, and reaches to take the fingertips between his lips to suck. Then he sucks them deeper, parts Hannibal’s fingers with his tongue to clean between them. In truth, he is nervous, that shiver that Anthony had displayed just before they ventured into the house from outside now tickles beneath Will’s skin. He has never seen the headmaster so displeased. Is he truly angry? Have they truly crossed a line?

_He will love it._

Will pulls back and swallows and presses his cheek into Hannibal’s hand next, nuzzling there as his eyes close.

“I’m sorry for being naughty, sir,” he tells him, purring a little whimper to follow.

Will hears the strike before he feels it, blinking past blurred vision as his cheek stings hot.

“You aren’t remotely,” Dr. Lecter tells him, before snaring the boy by his chin to bring him to his knees again. He searches his eyes, his own pools of ink spread wide across wine. His thumb presses Will’s lips out of shape, pulling down the bottom one, pressing between and withdrawing just as Will tries to suck.

“You aren’t,” he says again, “but you will be.”

And all at once that touch is gone, and Hannibal steps away to a cabinet placed inconspicuous amidst his many shelves of books. He produces a key and unlocks it - twice, Will notes, from the sound less than the sight. Anthony shivers, curling against the desk as the doors whisper open. From behind the hidden safety of the desk, Will extends his fingers to brush softly against Anthony’s ankle.

His prefect pushes up to his toes a little higher in answer, and with no more than this, Will is reassured. He brings a hand to his cheek and grins, but quickly drops both as Hannibal returns.

In his hand is, what appears to be, a mass of twigs. Bound together like a broom at one end, the sticks splay wildly outward. Anthony laughs as soon as he sees it, burying the sound against his arms as he folds them beneath his cheek. Whatever this is presents enough of a threat that their headmaster does not correct his change in posture.

Dr. Lecter meets Will’s curious attention and smiles, cool.

“Though referred to as the birch, it is best when made of hazel. A stronger wood, less likely to splinter into the skin. Which is not to say it won’t, of course,” he allows. “I trust that you’ll have an easier time removing them with William’s assistance, Mr. Dimmond.”

Anthony laughs again and turns his head away just enough to peek at Will from beneath his arm. His eyes are wide, not only blown so with pupil but also with adrenaline, with the memory of pain that took a long time to push to the back of his mind. He makes a sound when the twigs brush teasingly up his thighs and down again and turns from Will again.

Will would swallow if the lump in his throat weren’t so thick.

He needn’t coax his cock harder, anymore. Just the mere thought of such an implement is enough to pull his body to attention and his mind into the foggy pleasure-space he has learned to escape to. Will dares not touch himself now, hands fisted against his thighs, feet tucked under his bottom and knees bent.

The branches scrape whispering up Anthony’s thighs, and the prefect wraps his hands around the opposing wrists, arms folded, to stop from moving. His breath quickens, his cock jerking in time with his speeding pulse, and as Hannibal’s body pivots in an elegant turn at the waist, the birch is brought down crackling across Anthony’s ass.

For a moment there is no sound, no cry, nothing at all but a silence that hangs without even breath to break it. And slowly, uncontrollably, Anthony’s body begins to tremble. The muscles in his legs quake, carrying downward from his bottom, rippling upward along his spine until he does not cry out so much as gasp, sucking in air as if surfacing from near-drowning.

Will’s eyes widen, as all along the reddening lines of Anthony’s backside, spots of blood begin to well bright.

“Two more,” Dr. Lecter tells Anthony, who moans a sob against his arms. “One for each infraction. The wine, the encouragement to disobey, and your pride. What do you say, Mr. Dimmond?”

Anthony’s shoulders hitch, the jerk of movement snapping down his body and eliciting another agonized gasp.

“Thank you, sir.”

Hannibal’s free hand settles to Anthony’s hair, surprisingly gentle considering the punishment he’s administering. But it’s enough to bolster the prefect to keep his position, to turn his head and exhale slowly against the desk, against his fingers where they curl tight.

The second strike comes before Hannibal lets go of him, and Anthony’s keen is a long, drawn-out wail that Will has never heard him make before. It at once arouses him, pulling his little dick so hard he can barely fathom that it happened, and it scares him, for he has yet to see Anthony truly remorseful before a punishment.

When the headmaster turns to Will, his eyes immediately meet his, obedient and hypnotized by the power the man can wield with nothing more than words and a touch. The birch could be removed and he knows that the man would hold both him and Anthony entirely in thrall, obedient. Hannibal’s jaw moves just enough to suggest a swallow, and he gestures with the thing in his hand for Will to move closer.

He does, cautious and little, but when he sets his hand against Anthony’s ankle again, supportive and warm, the headmaster’s smile - that elusive and secret thing - shows through the tense mask of indifference.

The third strike Will feels through his arm as Anthony’s entire body tenses in pain.

He feels his prefect’s knees weaken, as the muscles that held shaking taut moments before now give. He feels the moment that Anthony wavers, near to collapse, with another dire moan. And he feels when despite the rivulets of blood trickling down his bottom, Anthony somehow finds the strength to remain upright.

Before he can think to stop himself, Will leans forward to press a kiss to the back of Anthony’s thigh. He nuzzles there, rests his cheek against him, lets him feel that touch that might ground him back from the heights - or depths - that Will can only imagine. The branches rustle as Hannibal sets the birch aside and Anthony jerks at the sound, but as he gathers the boy from his desk, Will slips back to sit, watching his headmaster and his prefect.

Hannibal’s words are unheard to Will, pressed so close to Anthony’s ear as the boy stands trembling, his head bent against Dr. Lecter’s chest. A broad hand sweeps through his hair and for a moment, he cradles him close, speaking softly through the sobs that wrack him. He has not come, but his cock has softened, and Will pales to imagine the depth of pain that could blow past their desire to feel it.

“Can you walk?” Dr. Lecter asks, leaning back enough to lift Anthony’s chin and search between his eyes. Blinking through his tears, Dimmond nods, softly, then shakes his head, then laughs. And then he leans close and holds a kiss to their headmaster’s mouth, and Hannibal does no more than return it gently, cradling Anthony’s head with a hand at the back of his neck.

“Go and lie down on the couch,” Hannibal tells him. “Walk slowly. Wait for me there.”

Anthony nods again, taking a moment that is granted him to nuzzle against the man who had just beaten him so cruelly. Will would question it if he didn’t know how deep and how strong that draw always is, to be held by the headmaster, to be told how well he had taken a punishment, or how well he had held his orgasm back. There is such power in the softness of his hand, no matter if it was the hand that had savagely struck him not moments before.

Will follows Anthony’s progress with his eyes and smiles when Anthony smiles at him first.

It’s reassuring in more ways than Will can say, to know that despite the horror of how it looked, neither Anthony nor Hannibal have changed.

He turns his eyes back to Hannibal and brings the back of his hand to his cheek to smear away the blood that had managed to reach him when he had pressed close. He doesn’t ask if he should stand. He doesn’t ask if he should bend. He will be told to, if it’s required of him. Instead he bites his lip and keeps his eyes on the headmaster before slowly folding forward on all fours again to crawl nearer, sitting back on his heels at Hannibal’s feet.

Dr. Lecter does not look to him, not yet. He is watching with careful scrutiny the slow steps of Dimmond as he makes his way limping to the sofa. With soft sounds of pain, and a little laugh lilting wild between, Anthony sprawls himself flat on his belly against the cool leather, and only when he releases a long, long sigh, does Hannibal return his attention to the wicked boy at his feet.

“You acted so that you would be punished,” he says - a statement, not a question.

Will knows well enough to answer anyway. “Yes, sir.”

“You wish, now, to be punished - be it spanking, smothering, or ought else.”

A shiver ripples up Will’s spine. “Yes, sir.”

“How unfortunate for you then that you think I would reward your misdeeds with what you desire,” their headmaster says, as he stands from the desk and returns to his cabinet.

Will takes the moment of his absence to bite his lip and hide a grin. He glances to Anthony again, finding the boy dozing, one hand lax, fingers folded against the floor, the other beneath his chin. He blinks lazily and then his eyes hood again, back rising and falling on steady breaths. Will knows that too, that strange peace that comes over one after pain so strong one never thought they could withstand it.

He turns back to the headmaster when he hears the little cabinet close once more, and concentrates on his face so he doesn’t flick his eyes to his hands. Whatever he holds will be Will’s punishment, and he is certain that as Anthony now lies, soft and unspent and hurting, so Will will be, shortly.

Perhaps it is the plug again.

Perhaps it is a band to stretch and tighten around his balls, as he and Anthony had played with sometimes in their room, curious and youthful and awful.

Will’s eyes remain resolutely on the man as he approaches, and he sits up straighter, hands gentle in his lap, cock still hard against his belly, to wait for him.

It is on this particular part of his personage that the headmaster focuses for a moment. A shadow flickers along the side of his jaw, and a low rumble presses low past thinned lips. It may be a purr. It may be a growl. More likely it is both, and Will shivers for it.

“You are remarkable,” he observes, “at making your punishments worse for yourself.”

Will’s cock twitches in response, and he bites his bottom lip.

Whatever is in Hannibal’s hand clicks against the desk as he sets it down. Two swift strides bring him closer and he catches Will by the hair, jerking him nearly back to the floor and humming low as the boy yelps out a whimper. He does not resist, back arched and chest heaving, and his eyes flutter closed with a moan unfurling past his lips as Hannibal takes his cock in hand and without passion, begins to milk him empty so swiftly that the friction nearly burns.

“Twice as long, William, for this insolence.”

Will squirms and whines but he spreads wider and arches into the hold against him. He needn’t hold himself back when it is clear what the headmaster wants of him. He needn’t even close his eyes to think of filthy things to get him closer and closer to orgasm at Hannibal’s hand.

He thinks of the birch. He thinks of the sounds Anthony had made. He thinks of the way Hannibal had touched their prefect, how Hannibal touches him now…

“Yes, sir,” he breathes, arching harder and turning his head to look at Anthony, stretched and lazy on the couch. “Thank you, sir, _ah_ -”

Hannibal jerks the boy’s attention back to himself with a turn of his wrist, corkscrewing up along the head of his cock, and a firm squeeze. It takes no more than that for Will’s breath to choke in his throat and his eyes to flutter shut, and with a tension snapping suddenly through his slender, trembling body, Will’s orgasm leaks thick and slow through their headmaster’s tunneled fist. So soon after the one before it, the sensation is more pain than pleasure, but there is pleasure in pain, and so Will laughs helplessly, all the same.

Dr. Lecter releases him so suddenly that Will nearly falls, catching himself sharply on his elbows as their headmaster stands above him. He takes from the desk a little tube of clear plastic, vented along the sides and the tip, and crouches low over Will before the boy can fully sit up again. Settled on his heels, Hannibal looms over him like a bird of prey, and he smears dry his hand against Will’s bare chest.

“I would prefer another material,” he says. “Plastic is cheap, although especially durable. I was forced to accept it given that metal would not allow me to see the inner workings, and glass runs a particular risk of doing permanent harm to something that I have only mind to harm impermanently.”

Will’s lips part, but he doesn’t dare speak. He hardly dares to breathe.

“You will wear this, until such time as I decide to remove it. I tell you this to give you the illusion of control, William. In truth you have none. It locks, and the key is kept safely with me. You will be able to wash - Anthony can show you how - and urinate. I would not advise courting arousal. I believe you will find it to be strongly deterred by this device.”

Will swallows hard and makes a sound, keeping his thighs spread as he ducks his head to watch what Hannibal will put on him. He hears Anthony stir and turns to look at him, eyes wide and lips parted. He finds a strange satisfaction in the prefect’s eyes as he settles his elbow to the couch and his chin atop his fingers to watch.

Will would resent the smugness if the boy wasn’t still dripping the occasional line of blood down the side of his thigh on Will’s behalf.

Instead, Will bites his lip and turns his attention to Hannibal again.

The device isn’t cruel when on. It does not squeeze his skin or split it, it does not stop the blood flowing where it needs to go. His soft little cock is worked into the clear plastic by Hannibal’s practiced hands, clinically indifferent as he had been in handling Will hard. Will says nothing as the thing is closed. He barely suppresses a whimper when it’s locked.

When Hannibal holds the little key out for Will to see, and he leans forward and presses his lips to it reverently, parting them before sitting back again. This is his punishment. That key, although wielded by an incredible man, is his master.

“Thank you, sir,” he breathes.

“You might reserve your gratitude until you’ve spent a day within it,” Dr. Lecter observes, allowing his amusement to show as he slowly stands. “I think you’ll find that it is harder to manifest, the longer you are within.”

He draws a breath, looking down at the boy sprawled across his feet. Drying sticky with semen, hair curled dark with sweat, Will is a debauched odalisque at rest, filthy and obscene in his beauty. Hannibal hums approval, and with a gentle nod and a lifted brow, bids Will to stand.

“You may go, Mr. Graham.”

Will nods just once, setting his hands behind his back, and he gives Hannibal a shy glance before stepping nearer and pressing his lips to the headmaster’s cheek. Hannibal hums, and this sound is all pleasure, warm and sated, before stroking through Will’s hair.

“Find some painkillers for Mr. Dimmond in the upstairs bathroom cabinet,” he suggests. “And you may bring ice to help soothe the ache in his thighs.” He smiles at Will who smiles back and nods again. “Do not move him from the couch for the moment, let him rest. I will call for you when he will need help moving to the bedroom.”

Will sighs a soft laugh and turns to look at his friend, moving to step carefully over the mess they made to go to Anthony, sinking to his knees beside the couch and immediately shifting to try and adjust the thing between his legs.

He strokes the prefect’s hair and laughs when the other leans in to peck him on the cheek.

“You’re a terror,” Will whispers fondly to him. “Will you sleep with me today?”

“Most likely,” Anthony replies, settling to the couch again. “The headmaster’s wrath extends over several days after a birching.”

Will bites his lip again and nods, leaning in to kiss him again before standing to get what Hannibal had asked of him.


End file.
